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This is entirely beside the point, but I think Lego instructions were my first real foray into technical documentation. It's surprising how well they worked. Th

This is entirely beside the point, but I think Lego instructions were my first real foray into technical documentation. It's surprising how well they worked. Their ability to boil down a complicated process into something a 10 year old could follow was impressive. As I got older I sort of dismissed them as antithetical to creativity, but after doing Lego robotics with some kids I began to realize the value I got from them.

rkangel 4y ago
An enormous amount of effort has gone into making Lego instructions as clear as they are, regardless of what age you are and what language you speak. They really show what is possible.
- corrral 4y ago
  The new ones are much clearer than they used to be in the 80s and 90s. I'm convinced the old-style ones were the reason I buried the needle the one time I was given a cognitive test that specifically tested spatial reasoning. The old sets' instructions were basically 3d spot-the-difference puzzles, in which orientation might even change between states, so they were pretty much training for that kind of test. The new ones have a little of that, but a lot more arrows pointing things out, little insets highlighting important parts, et c. Plus they put the pieces in numbered bags so you don't have them all out at once, for medium-sized or larger sets! Much, much easier than they used to be. Flip side is the old ones used larger pieces, on average. The modern sets are all fiddly, tiny bricks, which does make them a little harder to assemble (and much harder—nearly impossible—to repair from memory if they're damaged during play)
- Swizec 4y ago
  Now if they could print them in higher quality so I’m not constantky guessing if that’s a black piece or dark blue … Maybe I’m older and my color vision isn’t as good as it used to be, but damn it’s frustrating.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s the printing. The downloadable pdfs have the same issues
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mlyle 4y ago
> As I got older I sort of dismissed them as antithetical to creativity Yah, there's a lot of criticism of the "directions". My kids build big elaborate modular buildings from the directions... and then leave them as-is... And then try to build equivalently complicated things from loose bricks (sometimes copying a little bit of a mechanism or a trick they've seen elsewhere). I think the instructions are great. They just shouldn't be the be-all, end-all.
- disconcision 4y ago
  yup. the blocks themselves give you the first-order building components, and then the instructions give you an increasingly library of higher-order building components to work with... like reading code
samstave 4y ago
AS AN ASIDE; When I was a young'n I had a lot of legos - but my granfather was a nuclear engineer with GE... (helped build Hanford) There was a technical design/drafting book in his book case I picked up where I was around ~6 or so... I drew every single diagram/ortho/iso whatever in that book. Multiple times. When I got into middle school, I was opted to elect a highschool class, and I chose technical drafting... When I went to class, the textbook was the same one from my grandfathers bookcase - I sailed through that, and then... This was what got me into design and architecture and CAD... I then setup the first cad network in my highschool, while I was still in 7th grade. I was in VOCAD by 9th, and came in second in the CAD Olympics in 1993 (I was the fastest ever to finish the test in 30 minutes, on a 3 hour deadline.) THE ENTIRE POINT BEING ; Get kids in front of technical design/docs/whatever is complex as EARLY as possible. There is no loss in teaching a toddler calculus. They may wind up being a flamboyant broadway star, but at least they can maths.
- amelius 4y ago
  > They may wind up being a flamboyant broadway star, but at least they can maths. What fun is it to be a broadway star when you know maths?
  - asadlionpk 4y ago
    You can calculate probability of success as a broadway star.
  - beambot 4y ago
    Understanding that the world and your interests may not be one dimensional... ;)
  - samstave 4y ago
    AAAAAND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND FIVE AND SIX AND SASHE AND TURN THAT NOMIAL INTO A PRIME AND FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT! HANDS LADIES!!! LET ME SEE YOUR JAZZ HANDS TIMES THE SQUARE ROOT OF SEVEN DIVIDED BY THE OUTPUT OF THE GLITTER FACTORY!!! Sounds like it could be fun.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
paulryanrogers 4y ago
More so that they do it with few words and mostly images and icons.

rkangel 4y ago

An enormous amount of effort has gone into making Lego instructions as clear as they are, regardless of what age you are and what language you speak. They really show what is possible.

corrral 4y ago
The new ones are much clearer than they used to be in the 80s and 90s. I'm convinced the old-style ones were the reason I buried the needle the one time I was given a cognitive test that specifically tested spatial reasoning. The old sets' instructions were basically 3d spot-the-difference puzzles, in which orientation might even change between states, so they were pretty much training for that kind of test. The new ones have a little of that, but a lot more arrows pointing things out, little insets highlighting important parts, et c. Plus they put the pieces in numbered bags so you don't have them all out at once, for medium-sized or larger sets! Much, much easier than they used to be. Flip side is the old ones used larger pieces, on average. The modern sets are all fiddly, tiny bricks, which does make them a little harder to assemble (and much harder—nearly impossible—to repair from memory if they're damaged during play)
Swizec 4y ago
Now if they could print them in higher quality so I’m not constantky guessing if that’s a black piece or dark blue … Maybe I’m older and my color vision isn’t as good as it used to be, but damn it’s frustrating.
- TylerE 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s the printing. The downloadable pdfs have the same issues
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mlyle 4y ago

> As I got older I sort of dismissed them as antithetical to creativity Yah, there's a lot of criticism of the "directions". My kids build big elaborate modular buildings from the directions... and then leave them as-is... And then try to build equivalently complicated things from loose bricks (sometimes copying a little bit of a mechanism or a trick they've seen elsewhere). I think the instructions are great. They just shouldn't be the be-all, end-all.

disconcision 4y ago
yup. the blocks themselves give you the first-order building components, and then the instructions give you an increasingly library of higher-order building components to work with... like reading code

samstave 4y ago

AS AN ASIDE; When I was a young'n I had a lot of legos - but my granfather was a nuclear engineer with GE... (helped build Hanford) There was a technical design/drafting book in his book case I picked up where I was around ~6 or so... I drew every single diagram/ortho/iso whatever in that book. Multiple times. When I got into middle school, I was opted to elect a highschool class, and I chose technical drafting... When I went to class, the textbook was the same one from my grandfathers bookcase - I sailed through that, and then... This was what got me into design and architecture and CAD... I then setup the first cad network in my highschool, while I was still in 7th grade. I was in VOCAD by 9th, and came in second in the CAD Olympics in 1993 (I was the fastest ever to finish the test in 30 minutes, on a 3 hour deadline.) THE ENTIRE POINT BEING ; Get kids in front of technical design/docs/whatever is complex as EARLY as possible. There is no loss in teaching a toddler calculus. They may wind up being a flamboyant broadway star, but at least they can maths.

amelius 4y ago
> They may wind up being a flamboyant broadway star, but at least they can maths. What fun is it to be a broadway star when you know maths?
- asadlionpk 4y ago
  You can calculate probability of success as a broadway star.
- beambot 4y ago
  Understanding that the world and your interests may not be one dimensional... ;)
- samstave 4y ago
  AAAAAND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND FIVE AND SIX AND SASHE AND TURN THAT NOMIAL INTO A PRIME AND FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT! HANDS LADIES!!! LET ME SEE YOUR JAZZ HANDS TIMES THE SQUARE ROOT OF SEVEN DIVIDED BY THE OUTPUT OF THE GLITTER FACTORY!!! Sounds like it could be fun.
- mrguyorama 4y ago

paulryanrogers 4y ago

More so that they do it with few words and mostly images and icons.