5 minute Southwest Layered Salad
Purpose: My goal for creating this document id to help people that are on a budget and do not have a lot of time to be able to make a healthy delicious dinner. My hope is for the people who attempt to make this salad will enjoy it and find it helpful to their lifestyles. After the consumers make this meal I want them to have not had to spend a lot of money and also to not feel hungry anymore. The previously stated sentence would be the best possible outcome and the worst would be that the audience would not like the food or they were not able to understand how to put it together. I feel that the purpose of this recipe is beneficial to the people that are interested in quick, easy, and cheap meals.
Audience: The people that would most likely pick out this recipe are college students, singles, or families that are low on time. I say college students and singles because both of these audiences are normally have small budgets and not a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. I also think large families would enjoy this meal because of how quick it is to put together and it would not be very expensive to double or triple the recipe. The people creating this will be in a hurry and might have the tendency to look over a few steps and that is why the recipe will be short and to the point so that there would be a smaller margin of error.
Context: It was already mentioned in the “audience,” but the people that will be using this recipe will be in a hurry and on a budget. They will be cooking in a kitchen or maybe a dorm room area. It works well for students because it does not require the use of a stove. The meal would most likely be created in probably a 30 minute time frame because the ones making it will be pushed for time.
Strategies: For this set of instructions my approach would be a lot different than the recipe made for kids under 6. I would use pictures for each step for this recipe because it something that needs to be made quickly and most people will scan over the words and try to figure out the recipe on one’s own. If the readers try and do that then they could possibly miss a step and the pictures would be of great service. There will definitely be less color in this set because it does not have to appeal to the eyes of children. Instead there will be words like: “Quick, Easy, and Cheap,” boldly written somewhere on the recipe so that it will be very appealing to people on a budget.
Medium: Since this meal will be cooked in a small amount of time then I would probably try and fit it all on one page; the less material the better for the consumer. It would not make sense to do an audio or visual way because that would take longer than it would to make the dish. There is not much to do with this recipe, but to keep it short and simple. It needs to be well-known that this particular recipe is both quick and cheap. It would not be the type of meal to put together for a dinner party.
Arrangement: At the top of the page there will be an introduction to the meal describing how simple it is to make. Underneath the introduction will be a large picture of the finished product. Then there will be a list of ingredients because that is the most essential part to the recipe. After the list will be step by step pictures and the information to go along with it. There is going to be simplicity and ease throughout the entire recipe.
Testing: Just like the children recipe, I am going to create this meal using my directions before I allow other people to use the recipe. It also helps that I am a college student so I can relate to the people that are going to use the recipe. I believe that this way of testing is the only way to truly find out whether or not the recipe will be successful.
Comment
The audience is covered most thoroughly here. It is good that you point out that college students and singles would appreciate the recipe for the time and cost factor, as well as how large families can appreciate the recipe for the simplicity and quickness.
I'd say the testing process might be covered least thoroughly. Obviously you want the audience to actually follow the instructions and make the meal. But, will they be responding to a survey, making their own comments on the instructions, or summarizing the instructions? I think it talks about the different methods of usability testing in the reading.
This instruction set connects with my topic "how to french braid hair" because one of my audiences will probably be adults, who may want to learn a simple and quick hair style.
This instruction set would be less quick and to the point when it is changed to gear towards the child audience. It will be less colorful and elaborate.
Seth again
I think in this instruction set I found that you covered your purpose very thoroughly. I can clearly see the exact audience and situation your are communicating too (possibly because I fall into this audience).
Again the only suggestion I can make is in the realm of the medium. I understand the concept of fitting it all on one page. But this page? Where did it come from. Was it cut out of sunday newspaper or was it a flyer placed under college students windshield wippers?
This connects with my instructions in that I am also communicating with an audience that is comfortable with the subject but doesn't necessarily want to devote to much time or attention to the subject. The end result is all that matters. Your audience eats, mine gets out of a rip current if their in one.
If you changed your audience to maybe a formal, nuclear family then time would not be so much of an issue. More detailed steps would become necessary and maybe more pictures and white space.