A critical look at EBSCO’s new user interface for systematic reviewers

This critical analysis evaluates the impact of EBSCO’s updated user interface (UI) on the systematic review process, focusing on the challenges it presents for health sciences and academic librarians, students, and researchers. While the redesigned UI offers a cleaner aesthetic for basic end-users, it compromises the precision, efficiency, and reproducibility essential for rigorous evidence synthesis. Key issues include the unreliability of permalinks and saved searches in maintaining complex Boolean search logic, leading to inconsistent result counts over time. Additionally, management of the "Recent Activity" feature remains inefficient, lacking clear database identifiers for multi-database searching, automated full-history clearing, and crucial functionality like PubMed's "add to history". By prioritizing general accessibility over advanced search features, the new UI complicates search documentation and forces researchers to rely on immediate manual exports to ensure protocol reproducibility.