Figure 9. 23 : The Nest thermostat and iOS app (showing Celsius
temperatures).
Aesthetic styling
A consistent visual and aesthetic style across all platforms reinforces the
perception of a coherent service. Consistent fonts and colors across devices are
nice but may not always be practical. For example, the Nest thermostat uses
the same font and colors to indicate temperature on the wall thermostat as the
iOS app. But this isn’t always going to be possible: a cheap monochrome LCD
screen won’t support a choice of fonts anyway. Replicating the LCD font on a
web or smartphone app may impact readability. It’s also a definite retro
statement that may not be the look you’re after. It’s nearly always aesthetically
clunky to make a screen design resemble a physical device.
Audio is another way to use aesthetic design to create a sense of coherence.
Tapping the down/up arrows on the Nest smartphone app produces the same
clicking noise per increment as the bezel on the wall thermostat. This is an
elegant touch that adds a common aesthetic to each interaction without