The red, close button is in the expected location; However, the green, switch-to-mini-controller button is now below, rather than beside it.

The trio of gum-drop buttons has always been less than self-explanatory, but at least they were consistently located. iTunes 10 breaks the pattern, and not really for the benefit of other applications (since the vertical orientation doesn’t suit most UI designs quite as well).

It would have been interesting to be in the room when this new design was pitched. I’d guess that the rationale was to free-up additional vertical height (which is a common design direction seen in applications designed for widescreen monitors), but I would have loved to hear the answer to “Do we really need those 12 pixels so badly that we’ll violate our own user interface guidelines?” Sometimes the answer is “Yes”.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES

Pretty awesome, huh?

I had better luck loading the page today; However, after spending a few minutes filling out a survey, guess which button didn’t work?

I generally expect only a very small percentage of customers to fill-out surveys, so the reliability of the survey service is of utmost importance — if you actually want to listen. In this case, I hope that web metrics can be used to track how many customers started the survey vs. how many completed the task. [NOTE: If you're designing surveys, tracking abandonment points during the survey process can also give you an idea whether your surveys are too long, or asking the wrong questions.]

Links to this:

“Iris Scanners Create the Most Secure City in the World. Welcome, Big Brother“