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LEGO has begun offering building instructions for the visually impaired

Even for those who haven’t built a LEGO set in years, the familiar full colour instruction book that comes in all sets is a familiar inclusion, but it’s not suitable for everyone.

Thankfully LEGO has teamed up with Matthew Shifrin, a member of the community who has been creating his own Braille instructions for sets for some time now. The pair are now working on what’s being called a “pilot experience” to bring building instructions for a few sets not only to Braille, but also as audio.

Right now LEGO has recreated the instructions for four sets to be built in these new ways – 110014136570821 and 60207 – with plans to more in the future.

Clicking on any of those set numbers linked to above will give a brief overview of the set and then offer up what kind of instructions you’d like to use: the screen reader variant, audio or a Braille reader. You can see how all three of those options work in the video embedded at the bottom of this story.

After building the set the instructions will be followed by a 10 question survey, as the company is calling for feedback from the community. In the Fall (we assume that’s the US Fall) this feedback will be reviewed and future plans will be announced in January of 2020.

It’s difficult not to give LEGO a pat on the back here. The toy is already known as being inclusive and universal, evident by the fact that the existing printed instructions could be used regardless of which country the set was sold in or the language of the person reading it.

This new initiative goes one step further so that more people are making stuff with LEGO, which is always a good thing.

Shifrin should also be thanked and congratulated here as, without his work, none of this may have happened. We suggest giving his TED Talk a watch / listen when you have the chance.

This project, which seems to be simply called “LEGO Audio & Braille Building Instructions” also has a dedicated website which you can poke around.

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