A Couple of years ago, the LEGO Group changed the nature of their printed instructions, in the name of sustainability: The duplicated box art was replaced by rendered images, the instructions began to included an avatar based progress marker, and they introduced a congratulatory starburst every time you successfully completed a sub-build. But this reduction in the amount of cover ink used (and in turn the amount of processing necessary to recycle the paper) came at a time when it felt like instructions were getting thicker than ever.

Edit 20th September: the survey appears to have been taken down.

Today, Lego insiders is asking your opinion on paper instructions, and using digital instructions, with a short, and possibly leading, questionnaire. you can find it here: https://www.lego.com/en-au/insiders/activities. It’s worth 50 Insiders points.

I might suggest you do the survey before rereading my editorial from the time. This was one of my slightly more crazy tinfoil conspiracy theories of the time. But let’s take a Quick Look at how some of these things might have come to pass – for better or for worse.