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Gender by Design: Visual Communication in Digital Health Platforms for Women’s Health
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Participatory eHealth and Health Data Research Group.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8973-0226
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Participatory eHealth and Health Data Research Group.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6839-3651
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Participatory eHealth and Health Data Research Group.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0908-6173
2026 (English)In: International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, p. 268-281Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Digital Health Platforms (DHPs) have expanded rapidly, offering new possibilities for healthcare access, monitoring, education, and treatment across diverse contexts. Despite their potential, DHPs risk reinforcing existing health inequities due to unequal access to technology, limited digital or health literacy, and poor consideration of users’ social contexts. Several health frameworks, including the World Health Organisation, emphasise that digital health (DH) must be ethical, safe, inclusive, and aligned with the social determinants of health. Within this landscape, women’s healthcare remains markedly under-researched, receiving a disproportionately small share of DH investment, contributing to persistent gaps in care quality and raising concerns about bias in women-focused DHPs. This study examined how graphic user interface design in women-focused DHPs functions as a mechanism of mediation and control, reinforcing norms and stereotypes and shaping subjectivities. The study adopts an abductive approach, applying critical discourse analysis and feminist and queer theories to a corpus of women-focused DHPs identified through a survey of peer-reviewed research databases. The study analyses how dominant aesthetics, often characterised by pink colours, infantilised illustrations, and care-oriented imagery, reinforce normative femininity, gender stereotypes, and power hierarchies. By integrating critical discourse analysis and feminist and queer theoretical lenses, the study examines how visual interfaces reveal intersectional gaps in representation and proposes alternative approaches that expand inclusivity and diversity within DH.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature Switzerland , 2026. p. 268-281
National Category
Medical Informatics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-594336OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-594336DiVA, id: diva2:2086928
Available from: 2026-07-16 Created: 2026-07-16 Last updated: 2026-07-16

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-30552-7_25

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Terceiro, LucianaHägglund, MariaKharko, Anna

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