Why are some pages left intentionally blank?

I am reading (or, more accurately, being forced to read) The C++ Programming Language. As usual, bored with the main content, I found myself fixating on a mildly infuriating detail: a recurring message at the start of several chapters—“This page intentionally left blank.” ¹

I’ve seen that phrase before in other books and documents, and occasionally wondered why publishers seem to love wasting paper. Turns out, there’s actually a reason for it: User Experience (UX).

Most of what follows is borrowed from Wikipedia and User Experience Stack Exchange. Feel free to read those and leave if you’re not here for our silly commentary.

Why?

You hold the book in the right hand and flip with the thumb of the left hand until you reach the desired chapter – and here it is necessary to have the title of the chapter on the right-side page to allow the reader to ascertain having found the correct chapter.

That’s the main logic: putting chapter titles on the right (recto) page makes flipping through the book easier. This design choice stuck around partly because of typesetting tradition and partly because books just feel more orderly that way. (Maybe we should prune them altogether—what remains?)

But here’s something to consider: not everyone flips through a book the same way. For example, left-handed readers might experience this differently. It’s not about “being angry” or anything—it’s just that the dominant design convention might not suit everyone. Which makes you wonder how inclusive some of these traditions really are.

Why not just leave the page actually blank?

They are marked “intentionally left blank”, of course, because they don’t want readers to worry that a printing mistake has left them missing something good. Quora

I will almost never, ever, ever, ever worry about missing something good when I’m reading Stroustrup. At least not when it’s not exam season.

Why not fill the space with a cool graphic?

You could. Some books do. But in more academically inclined ones like this, the tone leans towards “serious and minimal.” Adding a fancy graphic only to the blank page would make the book feel visually lopsided. You’d then have to decorate headers, footers, margins—basically commit to a visual theme—which, in this case, they didn’t.

If I were designing this book and wasn’t being crushed under college work, I’d definitely do something about it. But if you’re in academia, and somehow wasting time like I am writing this post, remember the guiding delusion:

“You have to stay focused and undistracted by silly things.”

On UI/UX and Art

UI/UX is my first love. It’s an art form.

Remember the feeling of moving from Windows XP (or Vista 😬) to Windows 7 and its Aero theme? Or using Obsidian, which turns software into a direct interface for your mind? Or using a consistently designed app like Raycast, where navigating through clean, predictable keyboard shortcuts makes you wonder how much more we could optimize the gap between human thought and machine action?

CPU is fast. The mind is probably faster. But I/O? I/O is still painfully slow.

If science has a place in my heart, it’s usually because art led it there.

Written by Anup. Edited and enhanced by Monday