While the educational product development field has expanded tremendously over the last 15 years, there is a paucity of conveniently assembled and readily interpretable information that would enable users to make accurate and informed evaluations of different, but comparable, instructional products. Minimum types of validation data which should be reported to users to assist them in their selections include those which delineate the instructional context of a product: the product's purposes, target population, effectiveness, and efficiency of installation and management. The lack of user-oriented validation data on instructional products is partially related to the myopia of product developers and evaluators (who view the development process as the concern of decision makers who are not necessarily users), is partially a function of commercial publishers' priorities, and is partially die to a lack of consumer demand. (SH)