How to keep your relationship happy

In the context of my finals I also read quite a bit of literatur concerning behavioral couples’ therapy (BCT), also known under the former name of behavioral marital therapy (BMT). One of the reasons BMT changed to BCT was to reflect the shift of view that not only two married heterosexual people form a couple. On the other hand, lots of acronyms exist for this form of therapy reflecting the researchers drive to increase the efficacy of this form of therapy. Generally said, BCT is one of the best researched fields of clinical psychology.

Therefore, I was especially eager to see what keeps one’s relationship healthy. After all, you can follow either the advice from one of those books by a self-proclaimed expert or you may refer to scientifically researched literature. So what does this literature say? Schindler, Hahlweg & Revenstorf feature the 10 Golden Rules to keep one’s relationship healthy:

(1) Express your gratitude as often as possible. There is no “too much”.

(2) Take the initiative and collect ideas.

(3) Be transparent to your partner. Let him/her understand how you think and feel and why.

(4) Express your needs when they arise to avoid an accumulation of frustration.

(5) Provide a hand for a solution in case of opposing needs. Initiate a conversation and don’t stop until an agreement has been reached that can be transfered into everyday’s life.

(6) Prepare yourself to get disappointed.

(7) Try to fight the idea “It’s not my turn for xyz again, it’s the other’s!”.

(8) Cancel a conversation when it errupts into fighting and wait until the conditions for a constructive conversation are good again.

(9) Don’t target your partner’s weak spots on purpose.

(10) A fresh start is always possible, when both are ready for a change of their part. It may be a good idea for you to start with it.

Schindler, L., Hahlweg, K. & Revenstorf, D. (1998). Partnerschaftsprobleme: Diagnose und Therapie. Berlin: Springer.

Efficiency in 3D

In the field of usability studies, rapid prototyping is a very helpful tool in the initial stages of software development to develop a good customer centered screen design. In other words: when it comes to designing what should be seen on a computer screen, paper and pencil is king because everybody can participate and bring ideas tinto the process.

According to Wired Blogs, rapid prototyping is now available for furniture - and you don’t draw it on a paper anymore, but directly into the room.

To shoot the messenger is easier

What we’ve got now is the worst security system of all: one that annoys everyone who is innocent while failing to catch the guilty.

Bruce Schneier on the The Boarding Pass Brouhaha.

The necessity of standard interfaces

I love American Football and American Football games, especially since it’s so hard in Europe to follow the TV broadcasts. It is possible, but you pay yourself silly with monthly fees for some premium TV channel deal. Hence Madden NFL from Electronic Arts is the way to go.

My first Madden NFL was when I got the 1998 edition for my Playstation (1) on my birthday. It took me five minutes to read the booklet and after that I was ready to play. It was very easy, the X button was used to hike the ball and throw it while the other buttons were used to target the various receivers down the field. Perfect for a shotgun player like me.

As the graphics got slightly outdated in the following years I bought two versions when they were on sale for my Windows computer, the latest being 2002. It was simply awful. The problem lies in the miriards of gamepads that exist for Windows computers and the game’s inability to support them all. You basically had the choice to either buy the specific pads mentioned in the booklet or try to find out what happens when you push buttons on your non-standard pad. I even have a Microsoft Sidewinder pad, but I was not able to play the game properly as my pad wasn’t the specific type of Sidewinder recommended in the booklet. Making a pass was something beyond my control despite repeated attempts to figure everything out.

On Tuesday I bought in another sale Madden NFL 2007 for my Playstation 2. Initially I hesitated a bit because of my bad experience with control interfaces and Football games, but I figured that if they didn’t change the controller settings for the Playstation the fifty bucks are definitely gonna be worth it. At home I sat down and beat the NY Jets with the NE Patriots 55 to Nothing within 20 minutes. The only challenge was to get a feeling for kicking the ball with the Playstation 2’s new analog controllers, but now slanted kicks work even better.

Conclusion:

(1) Never change an excellent controler interface.
(2) The more complex the human-game interaction, the more controller standartization is needed.

Design in Web 2.0

Buenalog features an interview (in German) with Professor Veruschka Goetz that mostly deals with design and the Web 2.0

The interview basically features two main points: socialization and typography. Concerning socialization Prof. Goetz supports the optimistic stance that the Web 2.0 is some form of maturation mirroring the increasingly active user rather than just the passive recipient.
Concerning typography she explains how today’s Web still mirrors books and other items of our analog world in a large part. Well, it’s not really surprising since interaction with a new type of medium profits a lot (in terms of learning speed) from possible analogies and black letters on a white background will always be king, no matter if one deals with Web 2.0, 3.0 or 99. The only medium I can imagine to break this law is a device that feeds information directly into our brains.