Context
Sony’s update flow worked, but it read like an engineering process moved onto a phone. The audience ran from people who update reflexively to people who’d never knowingly installed firmware, and the flow had to serve both without talking down to anyone and without stepping outside Sony’s brand system.
Contribution
Four stages, four different jobs, each designed against its own failure. Notification: say an update exists without nagging. Preparation: be honest about how long it takes and what the device will do (disconnect, reboot, go silent), because surprise mid-update is what kills installs. Uploading: hold attention through a process with nothing real to show, without faking progress. Confirmation: close the loop so nobody wonders if it took, with the new version number and what changed.
The tension through all four was honesty vs. reassurance. A fake progress bar would’ve tested better and been a lie.
Outcome
All four stages designed end to end and delivered to Sony inside its brand system. I don’t have a number from after handoff, so I’m not going to invent one.
