Evidence
One literature review per topic, in the steps reader-ergonomics uses for its own evidence: frame, review, state of the art, position, the case against, baseline. Every work cited is listed once in the bibliography.
| Topic | Question |
|---|---|
| presentations | how slides and the spoken talk around them are built so a listener, who cannot set the pace, understands and remembers; since 2026-10-29 also business presentations (question 9) |
| figures | how a figure or a diagram is drawn, in any document of the family, so that a reader gets its message, reaches it without sight, and trusts it (question 11) |
Method
Each topic is a multivocal literature review, built to a written protocol after Garousi 2019: research and grey literature in one review. Grey literature is standards, company practice, templates, practitioner books and sites. Two files in each topic make the review checkable and rerunnable:
| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
protocol.md |
why grey literature is included, the questions, every search string with its date and count, the stopping rule, the selection criteria |
sources.md |
every included source, how it was found, and its quality: the evidence grade for research, a score out of 20 for grey literature |
A grey source is scored on Garousi's 20 criteria, in eight groups, which the sources.md tables name by a letter:
| Letter | Group | Points |
|---|---|---|
| A | authority | 4 |
| M | methodology | 6 |
| O | objectivity | 4 |
| D | date | 1 |
| P | position among related sources | 1 |
| N | novelty | 2 |
| I | impact | 1 |
| T | outlet tier | 1 |
Below 10 of 20, a grey source may illustrate what practice does, but it never supports a claim.
Each review keeps two records apart: most adopted, a practice record, and best evidence, a research record. Practice counts as evidence only where a study measured its effect.
The formal search of the presentations topic was narrative, with snowballing; its protocol file records the terms and counts after the fact, and says so. The grey search was run to the protocol. The figures topic ran both searches to its protocol.
Second rater. A second rater re-scored every fifth grey source, blind: 38 of 175, from the seven reviews that this repository, reader-ergonomics-academic and software-design-writing then held. Its results:
- inclusion: the raters agreed for 89.5% of the sample, Cohen's kappa 0.46, unstable at this size (bootstrap 0.00 to 0.87);
- totals: intraclass correlation ICC(A,1) 0.62, mean absolute difference 2.05 of 20, the second rater 1.8 points higher;
- four sources moved from below 10 to above it, and each stays an example of practice;
- the raters differed most on novelty, methodology and objectivity;
- outlet tier was not scored blind, and the first rater kept only the eight subtotals.
Audit
The presentations review, its motion and colour questions included, was audited on 2026-10-28: 79 numeric lines, 54 correct, 9 imprecise, 10 unverifiable, 5 repeats and 1 wrong. Claims the audit could not verify were then read in full text through a university's access; Savoy 2009 and Worthington 2015 were also confirmed by program against their PDFs.
The business strand (question 9) was audited on 2026-10-29: 89 lines, 64 claims and 25 references, of which 67 correct, 16 imprecise, 5 unverifiable and 1 wrong. Ten of its sources wait for a reading in full text, since their full texts are paywalled.
The figures topic (question 11) was audited on 2026-10-29: 183 lines, of which 116 correct, 56 imprecise, 8 unverifiable and 3 wrong. One withdrawn grey source was removed with every line that cited it.
Every wrong, imprecise or unverifiable line was corrected, narrowed to what the source supports, or marked "(secondary)" or "not verified". Claims without a number have not been audited this way, so such a claim is only as good as the review that cites it.