Human-Computer Interaction for BCI Games: Usability and User Experience

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) come with a lot of issues, such as delays, bad recognition, long training times, and cumbersome hardware. Gamers are a large potential target group for this new interaction modality, but why would healthy subjects want to use it? BCI provides a combination of information and features that no other input modality can offer. But for general acceptance of this technology, usability and user experience will need to be taken into account when designing such systems. This paper discusses the consequences of applying knowledge from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to the design of BCI for games. The integration of HCI with BCI is illustrated by research examples and showcases, intended to take this promising technology out of the lab. Future research needs to move beyond feasibility tests, to prove that BCI is also applicable in realistic, real-world settings.