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Usability test protocol (prepared, not yet run)
Status: the materials below are ready for sessions with 3–5 graduate students or researchers. No sessions have been run. This page describes what would happen; results will be documented in CHANGELOG.md and the README’s evidence section when it does.
Until then, the only evaluation evidence is: automated accessibility testing, scripted keyboard task tests, and a structured Agent review (a reviewer agent that did not build the repo; it may share the underlying model with the author — a stated limitation). See the repository’s
evaluation/METHODS.md.
Goals
Watch real grad students (a) save an article and insert a citation using only the academy, and (b) fix a missing Zotero tab in Word using the troubleshooting tool. Measure task success, time, stuck points; capture quotes.
Materials (in evaluation/human-protocol/ in the repository)
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
usability-test-script.md | Facilitator script with tasks and probes |
consent-text.md | Plain-language informed consent (no personal data beyond session notes the participant approves) |
findings-template.md | Per-session capture sheet |
review-form.md | Structured expert/agent review form (the “Agent review”) |
voiceover-manual-check.md | Manual screen reader check protocol (see note) |
Why the screen reader check is manual
Automated VoiceOver control (Guidepup) does not function on the build machine’s OS version, so the repository uses Playwright ariaSnapshot output plus keyboard-only scripted tests as the automated evidence, and a manual VoiceOver protocol for a human to run on any Mac (Cmd+F5) — the honest substitute for claiming screen reader testing that didn’t happen.
After the sessions
Document every change made in response in the repo’s changelog with the session reference that motivated it — the “≥ 3 revisions documented” requirement. Success metric: task completion without leaving the academy, not satisfaction scores.