Mapping the landscape of functionality reviews in HCI: trends, methods, and contributions
Elahi Hossain, Yoana Ahmetoglu, Shiping Chen, Anna Dowthwaite, Laura Lascău, Jon Mella, Nora Stern, Anna L. Cox · Interacting with Computers · 2025
Abstract Functionality reviews are an emerging method in human–computer interaction (HCI) for examining a set of existing technologies to understand their features. However, while studies share similar methodological approaches, the absence of unified terminology and guidance may reduce their consistency and potential impact. This paper introduces the term functionality review to define these studies and offers a systematic review of 44 functionality reviews published in the ACM Digital Library from 2011 to 2023. Our analysis shows that functionality reviews are increasingly popular. Further, we identify three primary research aims of these studies—classification, evaluation, and insight development—and categorize functionality reviews into four types: with systematic versus scoping searches and descriptive versus critical analyses. This typology enables researchers to align methodological choices with their research objectives and contributes to a more standardized approach to functionality reviews in HCI. Our contribution goes beyond establishing a framework and codifying these reviews; it encourages broader adoption of this method, helping the field to “close the loop” between HCI research and practice.