you're overcomplicating things, I think. The way I do it I just use a coffee maker with a filter and put it over the stove. Nothing fancy.

Hi.
I do the same as @3 does, I have my own coffee maker. I plug the thingy to the electricity, use a filter, put the coffee over there, water on the top, the little glassy thing under it, and start making it. About pouring it, I tend to put my finger near the edge of the cup, and pour. When it burns and hurts, it means that you've done successfully. Lol!

well I have a keurig that's very simple. I get single serve pods and use one at a time to make a cup of coffee. Just put the pod in, press one of the drink size buttons, in about a minute you've got your coffee! Simple as that, I started using a keurig as an alternative to having to brew coffee myself because I could never get it quite right.

As I've said before, I use the cafetière,  aka French press myself and am quite happy with it, with an electric kettle it's incredibly easy to make and does generally really good coffee, especially if I grind my own beans, though usually I'm a little too lazy to do that and get them ground in the shop.

When I was staying with my lady's family in the states, they had an electric coffee maker that used the drip and defuse method through filters.
That was more than doable, fill compartment with water, put filter in top, dump coffee grounds in filter, put pot on base, press one button and walk away. It even turned itself off and beeped when it was done.
I will say though, it wasn't quite as nice as making with the cafetière imho.

Then again, I freely admit, I prefer a long, large cup of coffee to a small, intents  espresso myself, since I like to enjoy the flavour as much as the pure caffeine hit.

Agreed with @4. I'm becoming somewhat of a coffee snob, and I think it's precisely the complexity of preparation, bean roast, fresh grind, etc that interests me. That being said, folks who declare using anything beyond a Keurig or traditional brewer "complicated" are the folks who just want coffee and simply don't care about those complexities. If you're looking for different preparation methods, might I suggest cold brew? Steeping cold brew is actually different from dripping hot water over the grounds. When the hot water saturates the beans, it releases oils and acids that affect the flavor of the coffee. It also decreases the caffeine count as well as the chances of getting heartburn, not to mention it tastes great. I just started this last week, and it's turning out to be a nice, refreshing beverage for the summer time. I pour it over ice, add half and half (half milk half cream) and even put in a shot of Jordan's sugar-free syrup.
Have I convinced you I'm a coffee snob yet?
Some people really go nuts with coffee. You can get machines that act as a coffee shop replacement where it'll make a plethora of drinks for you with varying features like grinding, frothing, etc, all at a very inconvenient price.

Cold brew is actually quite simple. All that is required is a container that can hold a tube-like filter, place the grounds inside of the filter, pour water into it, and put in the refrigerator for approximately 18 hours. The "cold-brew machine" I have is just a gallon-sized mason jar with a spigot for easy pouring and a mesh filter that comes with it.
I'm unaware of other methods for cold brew, assuming they exist. The only way I can see getting around the lengthy time of brewing is to have two containers that you'd alternate between, but that's about it. Perhaps Google could turn something up, but I'm afraid if I find yet another appliance, I'll buy it...

@assault_freak, thanks for that that makes sense, I'll have to give that a try.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any extra appliances or the like and it's not really warm enough in Britain to require chilled drinks for enough of the year to make getting such much of an investment.

I tried making a cold brew once but it didn't go well. A lot of the flavour notes that I liked to taste was gone from the cold brew because it was extracted for too long.

@18

Which model are you using? Also, what are the features of the machine that I should be looking for from an accessibility perspective?

I basically wanted to know in general whether the steps to preparing an espresso are accessible or not. Based on some research and videos that I've watched, it generally involves the following:

1. Fill the tank with water. Preheating the machine so that water is at the right temperature. I gather that having a machine that has an electrical thermostat that is able to do this for you would be useful. I'm not sure how accessible machine controls are going to be though.
2. Grind beans and tamp them, it sounds like this is a way of pressing it down into the brew basket? Then insert the brew basket
3. Pull the shot, running water through the beans into a cup. I've seen guides on using the colour of the water coming out as a way of knowing when to stop the process so this part sounds inaccessible. But I've also seen that you can stop the process after a preset amount of time and weighing the amount of coffee to know how much was made.

Do any of these steps cause any difficulty accessibility wise?

If you use a set of kitchen scales to measure out beans and coffee, which model do you use?

Regarding frothing, is the frother a separate machine that you just pour milk in and it froths it for you?

Finally, I've also heard that it could get messy. I've not used an espresso machine before but it sounds like coffee / beans could go all over the place somehow and create a mess in the kitchen if not done right?

i use the Tassimo coffee maker myself, i find the coffee very good as i do like my coffee to have a good amount of taste to it, i can't stand instant cofffee