A number of browser extension tools have emerged in the past decade aimed at helping informationseekers find open versions of scholarly articles when they hit a paywall, including Open AccessButton, Lazy Scholar, Kopernio, and Unpaywall. While librarians have written numerous reviews ofthese products, no one has yet conducted a usability study on these tools. This article details ausability study involving six undergraduate students and six faculty at a large public researchuniversity in the United States. Participants were tasked with installing each of the four tools as wellas trying them out on three test articles. Both students and faculty tended to favor simple, cleandesign elements and straightforward functionality that enabled them to use the tools with limitedinstruction. Participants familiar with other browser extensions gravitated towards tools like OpenAccess Button, whereas those less experienced with other extensions preferred tools that loadautomatically, such as Unpaywall.
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