It expresses intent

Before changing a piece of code, we first need to understand its intention, meaning what it is supposed to do. Not understanding code, or even worse misunderstanding it, leads to a great waste of time. Therefore, pouring effort in clarifying code intent is a sound investment as code is written once and read many times.

Software design is a collaborative activity and code intent is the expression of people mental representations. This means that clear code intent starts with effective communication: knowledge sharing, visualising mental models, using a shared vocabulary.