See it as a switch in a railway track: something that gives you an option as to where to go.

That is way easier to remember than "Swedish Campground", which we only got because there otherwise would be too many apples on the screen (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Swedish_Campgroun... the Apple 2 had 'closed Apple' and 'open Apple'. See http://www.macworld.com/article/2867994/think-retro-open-app...)

UX by elimination - mystery meat navigation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation) for your keyboard.

Mystery meat doesn't really apply here, as keyboards are not supposed to be obvious -- they are supposed to be "learn once and then remember forever".

You don't want to be looking "where's the key with the Alt sign" or whatever key you want to find every time you need to hit it.

Ideally a keyboard could even be totally black -- and fancy touch-typing key-switching keyboards are.

I found ^ the difficult thing. Although working with PCs for more then 20 years (although mostly Windows, only some Linux) I had no idea that it could mean Control. And therefore I needed to google what it means as an OSX keyboard shortcut. ⌥ was obvious, as it is printed on my keycaps, ^ not.