Alphabetical File Ordering in Code Review May Hurt Developer Efficiency

A new research study surveyed over 1,350 professional developers to examine whether the way files are ordered during code review affects review quality and developer experience. The results suggest that the current industry standard—alphabetical ordering—may be working against human cognition rather than for it.

The Current Gap Between Tool Design and Developer Needs#

Code review tools typically present changed files in alphabetical order, a choice made primarily for its predictability and consistency. However, this approach overlooks how developers actually think about code. The survey found that just over 10% of reviewers actually find alphabetical ordering to be the best approach for their work.

The mismatch is substantial: while some developers value the straightforward nature of A-Z sorting, more than half—57.6% of respondents—report that it forces them to constantly shift their attention between unrelated files, disrupts the logical flow of understanding what changed, and leads to review fatigue.

Cognitive Load and Bug Detection Risk#

The cognitive cost of alphabetical ordering extends beyond frustration. A striking 63.9% of survey participants expressed worry that this default sorting may cause them to overlook bugs entirely. When reviewers must mentally reorient themselves between files that have no thematic connection, their ability to spot defects diminishes.

These findings highlight a fundamental design problem: tools are optimized for mechanical consistency, not for how developers' brains process information. As code reviews typically span multiple related and interdependent files, jumbling them alphabetically creates unnecessary mental overhead.

What Developers Actually Want#

The survey identified concrete expectations for better tooling, with 66% of reviewers requesting features that would let them customize file ordering. Developers emphasized the need for dependency-aware grouping—the ability to see related files together—and options to sort files by criteria other than their names.

The research draws on data from developers across 182 widely used open-source projects, providing a representative picture of how this issue manifests in real-world development workflows. The findings underscore the need for code review platforms to prioritize reviewer-centric interface design that aligns tool behavior with how developers actually think and work, rather than defaulting to what computers find easiest to sort.