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Sabine, Ken, David, Terry and others The problem with comparing evidence based designing with evidence based medicine is that there are no searchable databases that parse design research enough to make it relevant and useful in the situations confronted by most designers. Some guidance may be had from statistics if one knows what to access and how to interpret the findings but, generally speaking, research findings do not map easily into the complexity of design problems. At the heart of the issue are the needs, desires and circumstances - the "problematic situations"- that designers address. Understanding how needs and desires arise in the circumstances of a situation and the potentials through which they might be satisfied is usually where the experience of the practitioner weighs in. That experience is often under-informed and in need of relevant knowledge. There are very few people dealing with how information systems to support design could be implemented. Some early efforts are worth noting. In 1976 the US National Science Foundation (1) found a need for information services to support the application of Environmental Design Research. It stated that "Research ... will have to concentrate on developing a comprehensive understanding both of the nature of design related information and the nature, dimensions, and dynamics of the design task." Subsequently the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation launched a program of post occupancy evaluation of buildings to determine their success in meeting the needs of occupants. Although textbooks were published, professional offices began to offer POE services to their clients, and government agencies incorporated the services into facilities management practice no searchable databases reached the architectural profession as a whole. Like POEs, case histories have sought to capture information and model experience to inform designers and other decision makers. An entire discipline of Case Based Reasoning using artificial intelligence to map case data to new situations emerged in the '90s . ( See (2) for a thorough introduction and some applications to architectural design.) But useful documentation of design cases did not become integrated with methodologies that might make them useful. Similarly, The Design Management Institute began to compile and publish case histories of design projects using a systematic approach to documentation. Although primarily conceived as a tool for teaching and sharing design management information, it is the only systematic institutionally sponsored approach to case histories that I can recall. In (3) I suggested how the DMI format might be strengthened and implemented in a searchable database to serve as a research tool able to inform design thinking. However no searchable database of case based information was developed. Despite several other efforts the matching of information to the needs of designers has never built the institutional support necessary to establish informational tools that can be used to capture and search for design information tailored to a designers need. It remains as noted in 1976 (1) that "The design professions have been able to get by in the past due to lack of hard research data and a dependence on experience and intuition to fill in the gaps where information was not available. This approach is no longer tenable..." Chuck (1) Environmental Design Research, NSF Program Options, Final Report National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. December 1, 1976 (2) Kalodner, Janet (1993) Case Based Reasoning, San Mateo, CA, Morgan Kaufman Publishers (3) Burnette, C.H.: 1994, Structuring Case Histories to Support Design Management Education and Practice, Sixth International Forum on Design Management Education and Research, Paris School of Management, Education Department, 1-3 June, Paris, France , See also DMI journal.