The overall intention of AIDMED was to address the need which medical personnel have for easy access to the wide variety of information and data sources available now, or soon, in computerised form. In the Exploratory Action of the AIM Programme a task was included of providing an interface which served this purpose. An initial analysis of user requirements led quickly to the construction of demonstrator prototypes, which were evaluated with medical personnel on simulated case consultations. Further revision of users’ needs, and the development of interaction models followed. The cycle of information gathering and evaluation led to the building of a hospital department prototype. A functional reference model and an initial top-level design of the system architecture were constructed, from which a detailed system specification could be derived.