Ready, Set, Bake: A Heuristic Analysis Teaching Case

This teaching case implemented as a pilot study explores a method of introducing students to heuristic evaluation by connecting principles found in the Great British Bake Off (GBBO, also known as the Great British Baking Show in the United States) to their experience in the classroom. Our teaching case implements heuristic evaluation through focusing on a technical model from the show intended for testing baking knowledge by providing a limited set of instructions. This lack of instruction, we argue, is an area worth researching further to bridge popular culture into the technical communication classroom. This teaching case displays one way to show students how heuristic evaluation can connect writers with users and provides further understandings of audience analysis.