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Jones, P. (2004) Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model: Glossary

"Autonomy is etymologically derived from two stems, autos and nomos. Autos is the Greek for self and Nomos is the Greek for law or rule. Thus autonomy, quite literally, means self-rule. The first mention of autonomy was in its application to the Greek city state. A city had ‘autonomia’ when its citizens made their own laws. Thus the natural extension to persons as being autonomous was when they made the rules that governed their own lives. Autonomy is a state peculiar to human beings, a person, unlike an animal, being able to reflect upon and adopt attitudes towards their desires, intentions and life plans." p.57-8: Source: Lupton (2003)

Domain is an area of knowledge and expertise relating to a particular discipline or location in which that knowledge is applied. A domain may be general or specific, depending upon context. At an ontological level a domain may involve practitioners engaging in specific types of actions, which may be unique to and commonplace within that domain. From a human-computer interaction perspective it is these actions which designers need to be aware of as they produce interface designs.

The WHO refers to 'domain' in respect of WHOQOL (WHO, 1999).

1. a scaled copy of a physical object such as a building or aircraft;
2. a mathematical representation of a physical or biological process, e.g., of the spread of disease within a population, or the pharmikonetics of a drug;
3. an exploratory representation of complex relationships amongst physical, biological, and socioeconomic factors or indicators, some quantitative, others qualitative.