Never, Ever, Hinder the Use of your Products!

One of the worst user experience I had with a software is with the Sony PS3. I kind of like this product, I found the user interface very nice and well organized… but they are much too agressive on upgrades! They simply block features until the upgrade is done!

A few weeks ago I wanted to watch a VOD movie with my wife. I launched the Playstation Store that asked me to upgrade the OS to the latest version. That’s 45 minutes before to be able to access the Playstation again! But wait! Once the new OS was installed, I tried to launch  the Playstation Store again… This time this was the Playstation Application that was not up to date !

In total it took me over 1 hour to do upgrades and guess what, at the end it was just too late to watch the movie!

In general frequent upgrades are good for your users and it I am sure there are plenty of bug fixes/improvment in the lastest version. But Sony has just made the wrong choice in blocking features until the upgrade is done. This is just plain frustrating for users! On the opposite Android and iOS propose an upgrade that you can apply when you want, and even better they download it in background.

It may sound evident, but it is very important to ensure your users will always be able able to keep the control of their products. You should never force them to do something they do not want to, like sony did with the PS3.