I learned Inkscape years ago by firing it up and going through Wikipedia images that needed to be converted to vector graphics[1]. I could pick images as simple (or hard) as I was comfortable with, and Wikipedia benefited.

[1]https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_that_sh...

A very simple tutorial for new users who never saw a vector drawing program would definitely be nice.

You definitely have to understand the app's model of things; this applies to every app, including things like notepad.exe. Users just happen have some prior exposure to certain models.

Clicking on toolbar buttons and reading the menu items, plus a little experimentation, also helps.

The first tutorial does teach you a lot :-)

FWIW I learned to use Inkscape quite productively without any tutorials. That was five to ten years ago though.

This was my experience as well. I did have working knowledge with similar tools though.

It is necessary to understand the basic concepts of vector drawing and memorize the shortcuts. What worked on me years ago, and made possible to switch from Illustrator to Inkscape (it was an happy transition) was this book at Flossmanuals http://write.flossmanuals.net/inkscape/about-inkscape/

Not as difficult as any vector drawing app (Corel/freehand/illustrator/sketch)