BCI Applications for People with Disabilities: Defining User Needs and User Requirements

摘要

The EU-project "Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction" (TOBI) aims at developing practical technology for brain-computer interaction. To elucidate the most urgent needs and requirements of potential users, 77 persons with disabilities from Austria, Italy, and Germany were assessed with a newly developed questionnaire. Participants had a high degree of experience in using assistive technology (AT). Despite high satisfaction ratings with current AT solutions there was still a need for better or alternative AT solutions in the areas of manipulation, communication, computer access/entertainment, and environmental control. The results also confirm the relevance of the set of applications the TOBI project is pursuing to develop. Main end-user requirements of new AT were "functionality", "possibility of independent use", and "easiness of use".