There's a great deal of talk these days about a desire for transparency --transparency in our software, our banking system, our government, etc.-- but transparency itself may not be enough.

Case in point: your standard legal contract is transparent. The complete documentation is made available to all parties involved. The dilemma is that the average person can't understand it as it is full of complex legal language and procedure. Granted, contracts are constructed this way to hold up to scrutiny, but I think it begs the question: if only lawyers can understand the document, can we really call that transparent?

Aviary, a collection of browser-based design tools, summarizes its Terms of Service in plain English. In doing so, I'll bet more users will actually read them (I did).

It's a lesson, I think, that transparency alone doesn't always fulfill its intended function. While policies are important, we should be careful not to forget the role of user experience.

Transparency must be designed.