A good question isn’t going to magic away a terrible policy or an unintuitive process

You can only do so much.

When your roof is leaking, improving your form’s questions is like changing carpets. Yes you’ll need new carpets, but it’s best to fix the hole in the roof first.

This is often what teams are asked to do. That or provide waterproof carpets.

A service I worked on a couple of years ago suffered from this problem. The team made the service easier to use. Faster to get through. And findable. But it didn’t fix the more structural issues.

If you find yourself in a similar position be clear about the limits of what you can do.

But also don’t lose heart.

What a good question or clear content can do is highlight how odd a policy or unintuitive a process is. And that can help you make an argument to rethink a policy or process.

A good question isn’t going to magic away a terrible policy or an unintuitive process. But it helps shine a light on it.