How to Brew a Pot of Coffee

Introduction

     This lesson will provide detailed instructions on how to brew a pot of coffee. No prior knowledge of how to brew a pot of coffee is required. Follow these steps, and in a short amount of time, you will be enjoying a delicious cup of freshly brewed coffee from the convenience of your own kitchen.

Getting Started

You will need access to the following items:

Optional:

Brewing a Pot of Coffee

     Once you have gathered all of the necessary items, you are ready to start brewing your pot of coffee.

  1. Open the filter basket holder and place a coffee filter into the basket.
  2. Using a measuring spoon or scoop, place the appropriate amount of coffee grounds in the filter. Refer to the package in which the coffee came for guidelines. Close the filter basket when done.
  3. Fill the coffee carafe with water and then pour the water into the water reservoir.
  4. Place the carafe on the heating element and turn the coffee maker on.
  5. Wait several minutes for the coffee to brew.
  6. When the pot is done brewing, pour the coffee into a coffee cup. Add milk/creamer and sugar or other sweetener if you so desire. You are ready to drink your cup of coffee. Enjoy!

Text-only instruction - PDF file

Instructional Design for Text-only instruction - PDF file

Reflection

     This assignment was fairly straight-forward: create instruction using text-only. The text instructions that I wrote here pretty much was the basis for the rest of my projects throughout the semester, though there were some slight modifications along the way. I suppose I had never really given much thought to how text is arranged on a page and what steps are taken to improve the readability of the text. After reading the article Designing Instructional and Informational Text by Hartley, I had a greater understanding of text design. At first, it seems like there are not many choices with regards to using text, but I now realize that good text design does not just happen by accident. For this assignment, I chose to Georgia as the font because I thought it looked nice and would be easy to read. I used bolding for titles and for the main title, I centered it on the page and used a slightly larger font size. I used a bullet point list for the items needed to complete the task and then used numbers to identify the specific steps of instruction. Overall, I was pleased with my design. I feel like the instructions were effective and that the page looks visually appealing with only using text.

Reference

Hartley, J. (2004). Designing instructional and informational text. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research in educational communications and technology (2nd ed.) (pp. 917-947). Mahwah, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.