The shape of questions a system invites

A system shapes the questions that get asked of it.

Some systems make ordinary questions easy: who changed this, when, and why. Others bury those same questions under three layers of joins, two services, and a slack thread from last quarter. The system has not refused to answer—it has simply made the question expensive enough to abandon.

What you can ask quickly becomes what you investigate. What you investigate becomes what you understand. The questions a system invites are, eventually, the model people hold of it.

Build for the questions you want people to keep asking.