On the reliability of the occlusion technique as a tool for the assessment of the HMI of in-vehicle information and communication systems

In recent years considerable efforts have been spent on the development of the occlusion technique as a procedure for the assessment of the human–machine interface of in-vehicle information and communication systems (IVIS) designed to be used by the driver while driving. The importance and significance of the findings resulting from the application of this procedure depends essentially on its reliability. Because there is a lack of evidence as to whether this basic criterion of measurement is met with this procedure, and because questionable reliability can lead to doubts about their validity, our project strove to clarify this issue. This paper reports on a statistical reanalysis of data obtained from previous experiments. To summarise, the characteristic values found for internal consistency were almost all in the range of .90 for the occlusion technique, which can be considered satisfactory.