01
Begin with the consequence
Name the decision or action the product makes possible. Identify who depends on it, who can be affected by it, and what failure would mean.
What is this system being trusted to do?
Method
Design the explanation with the decision.
Scrutable’s method keeps the practical questions close to the product: what happened, why, under whose authority, and what can happen next.
02
Make the basis inspectable
Expose the information, assumptions, and judgment behind the result at the moment a person needs them—not in a distant audit trail.
What supports this result?
03
Name responsibility
Make it clear who supplied the information, who made the decision, and who has authority to change it. Automation should not erase ownership.
Who stands behind it?
04
Design a way back
Give people a visible route to question, correct, appeal, or revise the result. A system is not accountable if its output is the end of the conversation.
What happens when it is wrong?
The result
A product people can use and interrogate.
The goal is not to expose every internal detail. It is to preserve the context a person needs to understand a result, judge its standing, and take an informed next step.
Bring a difficult system