Document Development Exposition: Instructions and Usability Test Script

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
When I first read the prompt, I had a hard time coming up with a topic. I did not want to choose a
topic that was too niche. A lot of my interests that I have are things that I have been doing for a long
time such as playing video games or playing an instrument. I did not want to do something like that
because something that seems obvious to me may not be obvious to someone else resulting in bad
instructions. I landed on the topic of making a grilled cheese because I remembered a conversation I
had with my girlfriend. When making grilled cheeses, I always put mayo on the bread instead of
butter because it browns better in my opinion. Making a grilled cheese is something that is simple
and could be explained very easily so I chose that.

First Draft (for peer editing)

When making the first draft I had a somewhat hard time because though I said making a grilled
cheese is simple, I felt like I was oversimplifying it. Though I understood plain language and easy to
digest instructions were the goal, I somewhat felt that I was using too much plain language to the
point that the reader may have felt like I was questioning their intelligence of some sort. I kept a
minimal design because I wanted a clear and easy to read instruction packet.

Second Draft (for your packet)

For this draft, I had no peer feedback from in the class. After looking over it another day, I realized
that the design of it was too minimalistic. It was very plain and boring to look at even if it was just an
instruction packet. To “spice it up” I decided to add italicized fonts and added a picture at the top of
it. Though I realized that it was still somewhat bare, design is not my strong suit at all so I didn’t
know what else to add after that.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

I feel like the changes I made for this draft really were not that drastic. I added some borders around
the ingredients section and the actual steps to give it more visual elements. I also changed the non-
sequential bullet point list. Lastly, I made sure to change the steps section such that each step began
with a verb.