Technical reviews: Framing the best of the best practices

Frames, which are cognitive metaphors for structuring our experiences and understanding of the world, can be transferred to others to structure their experiences, and thus to influence their understanding of the world. Though the process of developing and transferring frames is usually applied to the political and marketing worlds, it also applies to any domain where we want to influence others. As applied to best practices for reviews of technical documentation, this process can be used to change attitudes about technical reviews to benefit reviewers, information developers, and ultimately customers who rely on technical documentation to learn about technologies and complete tasks with software products. This paper discusses framing in general and how it can be applied to several areas of the technical review process.