Yes that's exactly what you do. You effectively put the manual in the UI in the form of tooltips, "WhatsThis", first-use popups etc.
Why would you think that is infeasible? Blender has even started improving on that front - after like 10 years of waiting it finally has tooltips!
In what way are tooltips "infeasible for advanced software"?
> In what way are tooltips "infeasible for advanced software"?
They aren't, and Blender has them. I think it's had them since I started using it, about three years ago I guess. Although they've definitely improved in that time.
Yes I mentioned they have finally added them. I've been using Blender a lot longer than 3 years and it is quite an embarrassment that it took them so long to add them.
Looks like proper tooltips were added in 2014. Blender was first released in 1998! 1998! 16 years to add tooltips!
You can max out on discoverability and consistently, but the user ultimately will have to learn, through reading or experimentation, how to use the program.