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Legibility
Visibility With Judgment
"Make the system explain itself."
Definition
Legibility is the quality that makes a system's inner logic graspable from the outside without distortion or reduction.
Essence
Complexity is inevitable; opacity is optional. Legibility allows truth to remain whole while still navigable. When systems hide their logic, power concentrates where understanding disappears.
Practice
- In data, legibility means traceability of cause and effect.
- In organizations, clarity of decision paths.
- In algorithms, visible reasoning behind outcomes.
- Opacity hides cruelty as easily as complexity hides wisdom.
Ethical Tension
Excessive legibility flattens nuance and violates privacy. Clarity must coexist with dignity. Reveal what enables accountability; protect what guards personhood.
Heuristics
- Prefer explainability to persuasion.
- Make reasoning inspectable at every layer.
- Encode auditability by default.
- Protect the right to opacity where privacy demands it.