This focus on task clustering and order of operations helps ensure everything comes together at the right time and dinner is served in one perfect, piping-hot “ta-da” moment.

All vegetables are chopped in the same step, sauces are typically prepared in advance, and a salad or side dish is often prepared last while the entrée finishes cooking.

Each step is clearly numbered and easy to process with minimal cognitive overload. The back page of every Blue Apron recipe does a great job of this. Well-designed recipes look for logical breakpoints and ensure tasks are grouped and ordered in the most efficient way possible. The finished example is perfectly plated and well lit to ensure anyone who sees it will think, “I want to make that!” The front side of every Blue Apron recipe includes a large, beautiful photo of what you’ll create. Start with inspiration and clear objectives. Here are a few of my favorite instructional-design guidelines, which I was happily reminded of as Blue Apron helped me go from a nervous, mediocre cook to a slightly less nervous, halfway-decent one. Whether you’re teaching someone how to make honey-butter fried chicken, a bridge that can support the weight of 100 cars, or a play that can move someone to tears, the essential dos and don’ts of effective lesson planning don’t change.

It’s a systematic process that any expert can use to take a complex skill or concept and make it accessible to a non-expert.

The folks at Blue Apron must have known their target demographic would include a lot of anxious, inexperienced cooks like me, and they clearly invested in a top-notch team of graphic designers, photographers, and writers to create their recipes. When I signed up for the service last year, I was pleasantly surprised by the concise, well-designed recipes that come with each set of ingredients. Blue Apron is a meal delivery service that provides all the pre-measured, raw ingredients and instructions customers need to quickly prepare home-cooked meals.

Blue apron cookbook