correction

I'm sure it has happened to you - you've written and released chapters and pages and volumes, and realized that you got it wrong. I don't mean the actual explanations on a page, but let's say - the organization of your document. (I don't think it's just me)

Because we're not the SMEs, or the users, or we're not the experienced user, there's definitely a learning process the TW goes through when absorbing and spitting out information. When you're documenting some really REALLY big system or process, I think it takes a while, hundreds of hours perhaps, to distill all the information you're tasked to document. The only times where I think this isn't the case are when you either aren't documenting an ultra-complex topic, or if you have a brilliant teacher - and come on, most engineers aren't brilliant teachers.

So I pose this question to you, my loyal readers (technorati says my audience is the #1051076th popular blog, so that's a lot of you):

When realizing your information could be better organized, do you change the organization in your documents? Do you think that this will confused your readers or catch them off guard?

I personally have no qualms about changing things around. Computer hardware/software users are used to constant updates of their software, and chasing the new [technologies], so changing documentation (not contradicting yourself) simply follows the paradigm.

Obviously you don't want to make constant, radical changes. And I'll add the caveat that your text should be highly searchable or contain a usable index, so when the user's expectations fail, they can fall back on a solid means of finding what they need. And obviously, major reorganizations should be minimized. If you constantly find yourself doing this, something is wrong.