The benefits of proofreading
 

Just for fun... there's an error (I hope?) in the "What's new in Pro Tools 12" doc. Is it funny that it's so wrong? Or is it sad as a sign of quality control?

(Bold is added by me)

"For example, when assigning a stereo source to a 5.1 Output bus, the left channel of the source is mapped directly to the left channel of the Output path and the right channel of the source is mapped directly to the left channel of the Output path..."

... thus giving you a mono mix of your stereo mix, only coming out of your left speaker. :eek:

Source: http://akmedia.digidesign.com/suppor...84536.pdf?ns=1
(Halfway through first paragraph on page 10)

Stuff like that actually does influence my purchasing decisions. When a company releases printed materials with obvious, serious errors, it makes me wonder if they apply the same low standard of care to their product.

Of course, the logical side of me knows that there is no direct correlation between one and the other, but I still worry that it comes from a corporate culture that doesn't place enough value on the customer experience.

By itself such an error wouldn't be enough to prevent me from buying a product, but it does get counted in the "cons" column and is one more obstacle the seller has to overcome to get me to buy.

Errors like this make their way through the authoring and review stage for seemingly no reason at all. Documentation is written and reviewed by humans, and mistakes do happen - and they are embarrassing when they do happen!

True, of course, but when is the last time you saw an oversight like that in documentation from Apple or BMW (and the latter even has to go through a language translation)?

Apparently it is possible to prevent such errors. I don't know the mechanism for doing so since it's not my area of expertise, but it seems the companies that value how they're perceived have figured it out.

Maybe it's more expensive to get things right the first time, but I'd rather pay a little more for the assurance that what I'm using will work correctly and what I'm reading is accurate. The way things are now, I'm not confident that the product I buy from Avid will be reliable.

I can't point to them off the top of my head, but I have seen these kinds of errors in documentation from almost all companies. Incorrect keyboard shortcuts, formatting and layout errors, grammatical errors, etc. I can't speak to BMW documentation, as I am not fortunate enough to have ever owned one.

Lest I give an inaccurate impression of affluence, I only had a BMW because my mom left me some money and I found a good deal on a used one. It was less than a Camry.

It is actually because I have limited discretionary spending ability that I am so discriminating about what I buy. I can't afford to just keep buying things until I find something that fits. Since it may be a long time before I can afford to replace whatever I buy, I have to make sure I choose right the first time and that whatever I choose will meet my needs for a while.

If the company doesn't care enough to make sure the materials they're using to entice me to buy are prepared properly, when that obviously should be a high priority, it makes me wonder if the same sloppiness exists in the product. Code is also written and reviewed by people, and mistakes happen there, too.

There is no such thing as infallibility, whether in documentation or in coding. That was the point I was trying to get across. There is no such thing as bug-free software, or (to my knowledge) the perfect set of operational instructions.

i have not upgraded to PT12 yet because for a long time they had 199.00 per month on their website .. i am still waiting to upgrade ... but now because no features have been added yet .. did they think we would ALL drink the koolaid ??

It seems that Avid's communications/marketing are generally very bad. They've made a mess over the last year of letting users know about the changes with regard to support/subscriptions vs. perpetual licenses... there's the infamous 'haircut' ad... and now this error in documentation!!! (It's minor... I'm being a bit absurd.)

If I were really optimistic, I could let all that go, and say that Avid's poor communication is a good sign that they are spending money elsewhere... hopefully software development. And they've just been underfunding the marketing/branding side of the business, which audio pros and enthusiasts don't really care about.

If I were in charge of marketing at Avid, I'd be jumping on that idea.

Obviously mistakes are made all the time. The real measure of competency is how quickly the mistake gets rectified.

In this instance it wouldn't be hard to fix.....but we're talking Avid here. :rolleyes: