This paper presents work in progress on a project to improve usability of corpus query systems, and in particular their query languages, for user groups that are easily intimidated by overly complex tools. Having evaluated a series of existing corpus query systems, we expand the existing catalog of (informal) requirements for such query systems with new findings. We hint at several conceptual shortcomings of modern corpus query languages and proceed by introducing the first design draft of our own hybrid approach. While doing so we also present two assumptions for future trends in the design and user interaction of corpus query systems.