Ask HN: What are the worst instructions you've ever read?

7 points·elil17··6 comments

I haven't directly read these instructions myself, but I do like this quote from "Most Secret War" by R.V. Jones:

they [the Royal Aircraft Establishment] had at one stage changed the method of packing bombs into crates, with the result that a crate arrived at Farnborough bearing the legend ‘Caution! The bombs in this crate are packed in a different manner from that formerly used. Compared with the old methods the bombs are now packed upside down, and the crate must therefore be opened at the bottom. To prevent confusion, the bottom has been labelled “Top”.’

My brother bought a gas motor for a bicycle that came with instructions from china that were poorly translated and were hard to follow. Assembly instructions without words can also be frustrating like in the case of a cat tree / scratching post I bought.

For a gym machine:

"Adjust pad rolls height at the same level of upper side of the things; place feet on foot plate and strech the heels fully towards the floor"

Instructions for assembling furniture. Man those suck.

Most instructions for assembling furniture that contain texts in steps usually do suck. I've found that many stores also opt for purely graphical steps with no texts (e.g. Ikea furnitures, Staples office chairs), and those are usually a lot more intuitive; they also force the packaging and labeling of parts to be as clear as possible.

most probably furniture instructions from Black Red White company. While IKEA has many separate steps illustrated in their instructions, Black Red White's contains like 4 steps in total how to assembly their furniture while having 4 times more elements

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