John Gray's book, Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus, has continued to dominate the bestsellers lists since its release in the early 90s. Now, Gray comes to interactive CD-ROM to pass on his wisdom about male and female relationships into the digital age.The CD contains the full text of the book, with context-sensitive paragraphs to bring up just the right snippet of advice, depending on what you are looking at in the interactive content. So, if you've got the book in print already, what is the value of this CD?
Firstly, there's a questionnaire, which can be completed by the woman or man, or both. At the end, Dr Gray appears to give a specially recorded message, based on your results. Then, the program sorts the most relevant bits of advice to give you, packed with videos, talks by Gray himself, success stories and paragraphs from the book's text. The questionnaire is not hugely involved, but does give a good indication of where your relationship may be at.
The advice itself is presented using video clips, with actors playing the parts and scenarios. Using this technique, it's easy for the author to demonstrate ways to change the situation, and the typical, ingrained responses that he says can prevent a relationship from changing.
If you haven't got the book in print, this CD-ROM is the obvious choice. Although you can't read it in the bath easily, there are many other benefits to the digital edition; firstly, the text of the book is presented in a way that is easy to read, in small windows, rather than huge PDF-style pages; but secondly, and more importantly, the point of this CD is that the book personalises to you, and what you are interested in working on.
The book itself can be accused of repetition in its chapters, and of being over-simplistic in the way it re-presents the same ideas, but the CD cuts through this by being context-sensitive, to give an interesting and valid "relationship therapy" tool, and one which works well, if the Success Stories on the CD are taken as a measure.
Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus on CD-ROM will please fans of the book, and for those yet to climb aboard this massively successful spaceship, it's the perfect place to start.--Alison Jardine
