iTunes uses the horribly flawed Yes and No buttons in two dialogs – when attempting to use a file iTunes cannot locate and when removing files from the iTunes Library. These should damn near never be used – some users assume that the computer has read their mind, so they blindly click the “Yes” button without knowing what will occur as a result. Furthermore, these dialogs can encumber experienced users, as they oftentimes force you to read the dialog text because the buttons themselves do nothing to communicate what actions will occur by clicking them.

My mockups of reworked dialogs improve the dialogs’ usability by using the Aqua HIG guideline for dialogs to provide three levels of information – bold text for the gist of the dialog, plain text for details, and action labeled buttons. I think my layouts would be easier to use for both expert and novice users, but I have no way of testing this theory.

While working on the above iTunes interface problems, I noticed that the Finder and iPhoto use the logical “Move to Trash” command (Command-Delete) for trashing files, while iTunes uses the Edit menu’s rather ambiguous Clear command or just the Delete key, which is far easier to accidentally hit than Command-Delete. Yes, there is a dialog which prompts for either just removal from the iTunes library or a full move to the Trash, but this is one of the poorly labeled Yes/No dialogs and it is inconsistent with other applications which perform the same function. Leaving the Clear command in place for managing only text/tag fields while adding the Move to Trash command (under File) for managing files is the way to go.