You are wrong to judge his skills this harshly in this domain, he introduced the only thing you needed to know, and he stuck with it the whole way through.
It's unstated actions that have to be intuitive, but this page outright explains the only action required.
Nothing counter-intuitive or unfriendly here.
ah, yes. up is left. there's nothing counterintuitive about that.
up is left is not counter intuitive when you outright state it and its the only thing you have to keep in mind.
user interface experience ( ) master ( ) proficient ( ) beginner (x) antagonistically counter-intuitive and user-unfriendly