When I send a big offer, I like to ask them the questions that I know the person who reads it asks herself. There are obvious questions like "How much will take cost?". Then there are the tricky questions people say in their head but never out loud, like: "Why the fuck is that so expensive?"

It is interesting to structure documents like offers with questions and answers because it makes boring administrative documents feel like conversations between humans. But even more important than making the document nicer to read, I believe that it helps me to think about the questions that the person might have and try to answer them before she even needs to ask them.

This helped me to clarify better the value I'm bringing, for example, by having to answer the question, "Why the fuck is that so expensive?". But this approach also made it possible for me to help people set the right expectations with documents I share by answering at the start of the document two mains questions that are: "What's this document about?" and "How much time will it take me to read this?"

This is a first draft of a principle that might end up in a book of the "Service Design Principles" series.