Ask This Book a Question: Designing a Book That Listens

Ask This Book a Question is an illustrated, interactive book by designer and author Vicki Tan that rethinks how books can support decision-making. Rather than offering advice or fixed answers, the book invites readers to begin with a personal question and move through its pages intuitively. Through structure, story, and visual thinking, the project treats the book as a responsive object, one that can be revisited, written in, and experienced differently over time.

The project grew out of a recurring pattern Tan observed both in herself and in others. Even when people understand why a decision feels difficult, that understanding does not necessarily make the choice any easier. Naming fears, tradeoffs, and patterns can clarify a situation, but uncertainty often remains. With a background in behavioural science and a career in product design, Tan has long been interested in why people do what they do. Over time, her focus shifted away from trying to correct cognitive bias and toward noticing what bias might reveal about how people have learned to move through the world.

Early ideas for the book emerged through conversations with friends navigating periods of transition. Tan noticed that sharing information rarely helped in these moments, while stories often did. Recognition frequently arrived before understanding. These exchanges became the emotional foundation of the project and shaped its emphasis on reflection rather than instruction.

The book developed through a slow, iterative and largely analog process. Tan began with hand sketches, visual maps, and paper prototypes, laying pages out on the floor and physically rearranging them to explore pacing and flow. Early versions experimented with tactile interactions such as flaps, folds, and reveals, using physical movement to surface patterns and relationships. As the project evolved, the interactivity shifted onto the page itself, shaped by publishing constraints and a clearer sense of what would feel accessible and useful for a general reader.

Throughout the process, Tan approached the book less as a linear manuscript and more as a system. Its structure emerged through testing and revision, guided by how curiosity naturally pulled readers forward. This resulted in a nonlinear format that allows readers to start anywhere, follow their intuition, and return to the book multiple times with different questions. Meaning is not delivered directly, but gradually constructed through movement, choice, and reflection.

Visually, the book draws on illustration, diagramming, and spatial thinking to support this open-ended approach. The design encourages readers to slow down, notice patterns, and engage actively rather than passively consume content. By framing decision-making as an ongoing process rather than a problem to be solved, Ask This Book a Question positions the book itself as a companion rather than an authority.

As the project continues, Tan is exploring how the core idea might extend beyond the hardcover format. Planned developments include an interactive card game and a return to earlier tactile, movable prototypes that invite readers to think with their hands as much as their minds. These explorations reflect Tan’s ongoing interest in how design can create space for reflection, agency and meaning-making.

Vicki Tan is a Taiwanese-American designer and author based in San Francisco. Her work explores how people make sense of choice and uncertainty through structure, story, and visual systems. Ask This Book a Question brings together her interests in behavioural science, product design, and publishing, offering a thoughtful example of how books can function as interactive tools for thinking rather than static containers of information.

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