Every time you opened SmartMusic 2010 you found yourself smack in the middle of the vast library of music included with SmartMusic.

Upon launching SmartMusic 2011 you’ll find yourself at a Home screen, developed in part to streamline the assignment process.

While “Find Music” is clearly marked in the left navigation bar, we wanted to make sure the music was still extremely assessable, so we also put a “Find Music” button on the Home screen. What’s more, clicking on the large “Discover!” picture also brings you back to “Find Music.”

Among the many goals of SmartMusic 2011 was to highlight the differences between browsing the entire repertoire catalog online (“Find Music”) and managing music you have already downloaded (“My Library”). When we studied people using SmartMusic 2010, we observed that most people used the online browsing process to find and open their music. While that’s okay, it’s not as quick or efficient for method books or pieces you play frequently.

We hope the new design clarifies that there’s an online “store” and a separate library on your particular computer; not unlike what many of us are used to seeing daily in iTunes.

We’d love to hear your reaction to this or any aspect of SmartMusic 2011. Please share your thoughts by clicking on the “Comments” button below.