Among others, digitalization impacts the scientific domains of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Cultural Studies. They all use a common methodology - hermeneutics - to gain and discuss insights. Numerous software tools support single steps in this Hermeneutic Research Workflow (HRW). However, there is no tool supporting the HRW starting at acquiring research material until the point of initiating the scientific discourse by publishing the findings, including the reasoning and argumentation. Since several steps of the HRW benefit from the support of Information Visualization (IVIS), Information Visualization for Digital Hermeneutics (IVIS4DH), a more specific variant of the Hermeneutics (IVIS4DH), reference model of Card et al., intends to facilitate the development of software tools in the digital hermeneutics application domain. Despite the extensive literature review incorporated into the IVIS4DH model, an essential step in model development is missing: The evaluation with representatives of both users of the model and users applying the HRW in digital hermeneutics research tools. The IVIS4DH reference model will be the foundation for software development. Therefore, we used a similar evaluation approach to validate the reference model. This paper presents the approach and evaluation’ findings and the resulting changes to IVIS4DH. We have chosen a three-step approach first to obtain qualitative feedback, then quantify and examine the findings in the next revision of the reference model, and eventually fine-tune and conclude the life cycle iteration of the reference model together with members of the research cluster digital_culture. Furthermore, our research highlights findings specific to the application domain of digital hermeneutics which require a thorough thought process of computer scientists when developing software tools for the application domain.