When my department at the University of Minnesota purchased a new, industrial coffee maker, it was an exciting addition to our office space. We soon discovered, however, that the instruction manual included with the new machine was confusing and difficult to read.

I decided to take the opportunity to write my own user guide for the coffee machine. The audience for my guide was other employees in my department, in particular student employees who would be responsible for brewing coffee for departmental events.

I started by outlining my user guide in a simple text document, to plan out what sections would be necessary to include. I drafted the initial instructions and made note of steps where I would need to include an image to assist the user.

Once my plan was complete, I began writing the user guide using Oxygen XML Editor. The Oxygen software allowed me to create a DITA map to easily organize and eventually publish my guide. As I worked on the text of the guide, I also took pictures of different stages in the brewing process and attached those to the document.

After I finished my first draft of the user guide, I asked two student employees to help test the document for me. The employees both operated the machine using the guide, making notes of areas where they were confused or uncertain about any of the steps. I compiled their feedback and used it to adjust the document, making it more user-friendly for its target audience.

The user guide I created for this coffee machine is simple and straightforward. It allowed all employees in our department to quickly learn how to use our office's new machine, and contributed to the success of our departmental events and the caffeination of our staff.

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