Shazam is an app which allows you to identify tunes (perhaps on the radio, or being played live, or on an old unlabeled CD) by simply holding your phone up to the music source. It's got a massive database behind it, with an amazingly large repertoire. (I've tried to fox it with some obscure stuff, and although it's not impossible to catch it out, I really was impressed).
The beauty of the Shazam app is its simple design; it looks good, it does what it says in the tin and is great fun to use.
The app takes you straight to the most important content – the opening screen contains the name-that-tune functionality. You can make it work at one touch of a big, obvious button in the middle of the screen – so visible its design is the visual equivalent of screaming press me! This means it has great virtual affordance, and makes good use of Fitt's Law, which at its simplest can be taken to mean that big buttons are easier to use. Obvious, surely; however this principle is surprisingly often ignored.
When you press the button it gives you clear and timely feedback on what stage of the process it’s at, and a timer lets you know how far along the process you are – both features adhering to Jakob Neilson’s heuristic design principle of the visibility of system status
The icons for the other features in the service are clearly labelled with text; "using words to describe the desired action" is something which Don Norman reminds us can be good practice. The icons themselves also rate very well on consistency as they're often used on other interfaces.
The fonts are high-contrast, easy to read and often large; so the app has good readability - a fundamental principle according to Bruce Tognazzini
The overall design is aesthetic and minimalist - another of Neilson’s heuristics.
It's a great app; powerful but very simple in design. A pleasure to use!
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