After inserting the CD into the drive and commanding it to run, the user hears the beginning of a musical soundtrack that soars and swoops as heroically as any Hollywood film's score. Feature one is four minutes of music while the screen shifts through the four chapter groups of the textbook. A figurative map of North America accompanies each group, while moving the pointer to a particular chapter title in that group causes a corresponding section of the map to enlarge. If one lets the program run along, it will take the reader to Chapter One. This chapter begins, as do all the others, with illustrations in the left column and a textual overview of the chapter in the right column.
Users can also select to move to the quiz, section headings, or contents for that chapter.
Meanwhile, a pleasant female voice reads the textual overview over the background soundtrack. One can read along with the text or follow the illustrations as they change frame by frame with the text. The images in each overview are extremely traditional still photos, at least in the first half of the textbook. Paintings of battles and white men are in abundance. A more diverse picture emerges in the second half of the book.