Towards a user-centred methodological framework for the design and evaluation of applications combining brain-computer interfaces and virtual environments: contributions of ergonomics

The paper aims to offer a user-centred methodological framework to guide design and evaluation of applications combining Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) and Virtual Environment (VE). Our framework is based on the contributions of ergonomics to ensure these applications are well suited for end-users. It provides methods, criteria and metrics to perform the phases of the human-centred design process aiming to understand the context of use, specify the user needs and evaluate the solutions in order to define design choices. Several ergonomic methods (e.g., interviews, longitudinal studies, user based testing), objective metrics (e.g., task success, number of errors) and subjective metrics (e.g., mark assigned to an item) are suggested to define and measure the usefulness, usability, acceptability, hedonic qualities, appealingness, emotions related to user experience, immersion and presence to be respected. The benefits and contributions of our user centred framework for the ergonomic design of applications combining BCI and VE are discussed.