Abstract—Virtual reality combined with embedded eye tracking offers a promising alternative to traditional in-vehicle usability assessment; however, integrating commercial extended reality analytics platforms into immersive workflows raises methodological challenges related to standardization, reproducibility, metric transparency, and version control. This study proposes a repeatable evaluation protocol and governance framework for the use of commercial extended reality analytics in immersive in-vehicle usability assessment. The framework was operationalized in an exploratory proof-of-concept study involving an immersive cockpit simulation, embedded eye tracking, a proprietary spatial analytics platform, and a physical vehicle mockup aligned with the virtual scene. Ten participants performed structured driving-related tasks, and gaze data were converted into spatial visualizations, behavioral metrics, and platform-derived presence indicators, which were descriptively compared with subjective questionnaire responses to support multimodal interpretation. The findings suggest that commercial analytics platforms can support the early identification of ergonomic inconsistencies and attention-distribution patterns in immersive cockpit evaluation. At the same time, the study highlights structural dependencies introduced by proprietary infrastructures, including metric opacity, software version instability, and limited auditability, which may affect longitudinal comparability and interpretive reliability. Practically, the study provides a reusable workflow for collision and area-of-interest validation, version documentation, multimodal benchmarking, and independent data archival to support more transparent, auditable, and repeatable immersive usability evaluation.
 
Keywords—virtual reality, eye tracking, in-vehicle usability, extended reality analytics governance


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