Net ergonomics: information retrieval in health care domains.
The explosion of Internet-based socio-cultural subcontexts and the possibility, horizontally distributed, of handling information on the Net, are transforming information retrieval in a key topic for psychosocial research. However, describing and analyzing how a huge and complex topic can be discussed in the Net and how people's behaviors and attitudes can be influenced by this discussion, is a very complicated task. The aim of this chapter, is both to point out the limits of traditional approaches to the analysis of information retrieval in complex Internet-based domains, and to propose some advice for a cultural approach to the Net. In particular, starting from the analysis of a specific health care domain--drug abuse--the chapter will try to identify some guidelines for the study of these issues.
Gamberini
L
L
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Italy.
Riva
G
G
D004346:Drug Information Services; D006804:Ergonomics; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface