This review summarized the experimental design methods used to investigate the effects of various factors on fermentative hydrogen production processes, including one-factor-at-a-time design, full factorial design, Taguchi design, Plackett-Burman design, central composite design and Box-Behnken design. Each design method was briefly introduced, followed by the introduction of its analysis, in addition, the advantages and disadvantages of each design method were briefly discussed. Moreover, the application of each design method to the study of fermentative hydrogen production was analyzed and discussed. Based on the discussion in this review, an experimental design strategy for optimizing fermentative hydrogen production processes was proposed. in the end, the software packages that can carry out the above mentioned factorial design and analysis were briefly introduced. (C) 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.