TY - JOUR AU - Burnett, Gary AU - Whetstone, Melinda AU - Jaeger, Paul T. PY - 2013/07/23 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Personal Health Record interfaces: A hermeneutic analysis JF - First Monday JA - FM VL - 18 IS - 8 SE - DO - 10.5210/fm.v18i8.4748 UR - https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4748 SP - AB - <p>This study draws upon cultural hermeneutics to provide insight into the ways Personal Health Records (PHRs) project an information world related to health. Differences in PHRs can range from key variations in functionality to differences in how they make the experiences of users more akin to personal interactions than to clinical visits or impersonal e-commerce transactions. This study provides analyses of design and communication issues in three PHR Web sites, offering preliminary conclusions about the potential impact of differences in design and functionality, as well as the inclusiveness of these interfaces for populations traditionally underserved by technology design. Additionally, it undergirds its analyses with a theoretical approach rooted in the theory of Information Worlds, which suggests that each PHR interface projects a specific “information world” that both enables and constrains not only user options and activities, but also how users are able to understand the parameters of “health” itself. </p> ER -