Analyzing the Synergy between HCI and TRIZ in Product Innovation through a Systematic Review of the Literature

The boundary between tangible and digital products is getting more fused while rapidly evolving systems for interaction require novel processes that allow for rapidly developed designs, evaluations, and interaction strategies to facilitate efficient and unique user interactions with computer systems. Accordingly, the literature suggests combining creativity enhancement tools or methods with human-computer interaction (HCI) design. The TRIZ base of knowledge appears to be one of the viable options, as shown in the fragmental indications reported in well-acknowledged design textbooks. The goal of this paper is to present a systematic review of the literature to identify and analyze the published approaches and recommendations to support the synergy between HCI and TRIZ from the perspective of product innovation related to HCI, with the aim of providing a first comprehensive classification and discussing about observable differences and gaps. The method followed is the guidelines related to systematic literature review methods. As results, out of 444 initial results, only 17 studies reported the outcomes of the synergy between HCI and TRIZ. The 7 of these studies explored the feasibility of the combination of HCI and TRIZ. The 10 studies attempted to combine and derive approaches in these two fields, and the outcomes defined 3 different integration strategies between HCI and TRIZ. Some conclusions achieved are that the generic solutions to support the synergy between HCI and TRIZ are still rare in the literature. The extraction and combination of different tools caused the randomization of the evaluation criteria, and the performance of the proposals has not been comprehensively evaluated. However, the findings can help inform future developments and provide valuable information about the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches.