Aude wrote:
Maybe it would be worthwhile for us to do usability testing on different referencing methods. Some usability testing was done on the German Wikipedia, a few years ago. This would allow us to test the interface with general people, rather than experienced Wikipedians. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability
A method I've used a few times is to create a template for each individual reference to make reuse easier. This had the added benefit of making the wiki code much simpler in the article itself; instead of having "<ref>{{cite book|title=The Timetables of Science| first=Alexander| last=Hellemans| coauthors=Bryan Bunch| publisher=Simon and Schuster| location=New York, New York| year=1988| isbn=0671621300 |pages=}}</ref>" embedded in the article's text all you have is "<ref>{{The Timetables of Science}}</ref>" (or "<ref>{{The Timetables of Science|pages=blah}}</ref>" to reference a specific page).
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates for other similar examples. If this were to become a widespread practice it might make sense to create a pseudo-namespace to keep the templates organized, much like how almost all userboxes have names beginning with "User ".