Assessing Text Reading and Text Entry while Driving Using the Visual Occlusion Technique

This study estimated the time drivers spend completing text reading and text entry tasks of varying difficulty levels using visual occlusion to mimic the timesharing between driving and interacting with text. The findings showed that text entry took longer than text reading and task time increased with longer text length. In the occlusion condition, the total task time with vision unoccluded wasshorter than the task time in the static condition, although this finding was not consistent across reading and entry. Ambient text (irrelevant text surrounding the text of interest) had no effect on time on task. These results should be considered in light of the acceptable limits for time on task and can inform the design of in-vehicle systems that require text reading or entry.