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One of the many difficulties encountered while performing software maintenance is determining the impact of potential changes on what already exists. One way to address this difficulty is to give the maintainers access to the Design Rationale of the original system. This rationale would provide the intent behind the design and implementation deci a sions, as well as a history of design alternatives that have been considered. Unfortunately, t this information is difficult and time consuming to capture and therefore is rarely available. Our approach to this problem is to look at how the rationale could be used. Rationale needs to be useful to provide incentive for its initial capture. We present SEURAT, a system that supports entry and display of the rationale as well as inferences over the rationale. It helps ensure that the reasoning given for modifications made during software maintenance is consistent with the designer’s …