Organization of Documents for International Audience

[Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>]

Hi, all.
 
My question pertains to user manuals, quick start guides, etc., that are published as PDFs.
 
If your books are translated and distributed around the world, do you reorganize any of the content depending on the market they will go to? Or do you follow the typical American document organization and leave it that way?
 
I have seen some documents from a German company that follow quite a different order from our standard order. I don't know if this order is more typical of European documents, or if it is unique to the tech writer who produced the manuals. Here are some differences between our typical document organization and the German document organization:
 
General American document organization:
 
1. Cover
2. Legal matter including copyright statements
3. Table of Contents (describes scope and purpose of book, audience's level of knowledge, typeface conventions, warning icons)
4. Preface
5. Introduction to the X
6. Safety section
7. Chapters pertaining to setup, use, analysis of results
8. Appendix: Technical Specifications
9. Other appendixes
 
 
General European (German) document organization:
 
1. Cover
2. Table of Contents
3. Legal matter including copyright statements
4. Preface (does not describe audience, book structure, typefaces, etc., but does provide contact information and further copyright limitations such as "no unauthorized copying")
5. Guarantee and Compensation Conditions (conditions under which customer can get a refund, etc.  What we would consider contract terms.)
6. Introduction to the X
7. Chapter containing Technical Specifications
8. Chapters pertaining to  setup, use, analysis of results
9. Appendixes about various topics
 
If you are aware of different expectations around the planet as to how a user guide should be organized, do you reorg your documents to suit the expectations in different markets? Or do you just stick to one organization?
 
Also, any suggestions about sources of info about world document design will be gratefully received.
 
--Nancy
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