Different Folks, Different Strokes: The Future of CD-ROM User Interfaces.

This article focuses on the future of CD-ROM user interfaces. CD-ROM user interfaces can not please everyone. The majority of CD-ROM databases are offered in one version, with one and only one user interface. This is very different from the online world where many of the databases are available through the software of at least four or five online services. The trend of making available one datafile with different user interfaces is likely to accelerate in 1993 when many of the exclusive agreements between the database publishers and the CD-ROM producers expire. Sociofile, for example, will be available not only with the Silver-Platter software but also with the much improved new version of CORE software from Compact Cambridge in early 1993. So also will be the clinical subset of PsycLIT. Still, users will have to choose one version or the other, and neither may sport the user interface with which users are familiar. Government agencies, user groups, and CD-ROM producers all have presented standardization proposals to alleviate the problem of learning different interfaces when CD-ROM databases of various publishers are to be searched.