Gerenciadores de referência na escrita acadêmica: avaliando a comunicabilidade do Zotero para usuários iniciantes

Abstract

In the Information Society, the exponential growth of scientific productions necessitates that researchers master bibliographic information management and the standardization of citations and references. Reference Managers emerge as tools that assist and automate this task, promoting Information Literacy. However, their adoption is hindered by their learning curve and the underutilization of features, indicating failures in communicability. This study aims to identify the communicative breakdowns faced by novice users when using Zotero. The methodology consists of a comparative analysis of reference managers, which resulted in the selection of Zotero as the object of study; the application of a questionnaire regarding practices for normalizing bibliographic data and the usage experience of Zotero users; the application of the Semiotic Inspection Method (SIM) and the Communicability Evaluation Method (CEM) with novice users; and the triangulation of these methods to more reliably assess the quality of the emission and reception of the metamessage communication in Zotero. The research results suggest that Zotero, generally, possesses good communicability, with an alignment of target audience, objectives, and design logic; but it fails to communicate design intentions regarding the addition of items to the library. Based on the identified communicational ruptures, we suggest improving the interface icons and texts, coupled with an onboarding flow that helps the user learn to use Zotero without immediately needing to resort to the documentation, potentially, reducing the learning curve.