WORKS
TEAGUE
Supporting passenger confidence in autonomous vehicles
Category: Auto / Autonomous Vehicle Tech
Delivery: Car Dashboard Screen Design / Interaction & Content Strategy
Role: Interaction Design / 3D Design
2019
BACKGROUND
At TEAGUE, I worked on a self-driving car program focused on a core question: how do you help passengers feel confident when they’re no longer in control of the wheel? My contribution centered on interaction design for the in-vehicle “confidence screen” — the primary surface for communicating what the car is doing, why, and what will happen next.
HUMAN TRUTH
Passengers stepping into an autonomous vehicle bring a mix of curiosity and anxiety. They can’t directly see the system’s perceptions or decision-making, but they are acutely aware of risk: Is this car seeing what I see? Does it "see" that pedestrian? Why did it suddenly slow down? Without clear, timely signals, even a technically safe system can feel opaque and unnerving, which quickly erodes trust.
CONTRIBUTIONS
To get there:
I helped define what information the confidence screen should prioritize and when:
Scenarios where passengers most needed reassurance — sudden braking, lane changes, merging, or encountering pedestrians and cyclists — and used those moments to shape both the confidence screen itself and the way the car “talks” to passengers
I explored different ways to represent the vehicle’s “field of awareness,” upcoming maneuvers, and potential points of concern through iterative concepting and behavior mapping.
Asking questions like, “Is a detailed 3D car building trusting or raising concern when the 3D model does not match 1-1 with the real world passengers are seeing? What might an alternative visual representation of AV’s ‘field of vision’?”
Across these scenarios, I combined graphical cues (GUI) and plain‑language messages to explain what the vehicle sees, what it’s doing, and what will happen next.
Throughout the project, I collaborated with designers, project and account managers, along with technical engineers to ensure these patterns were technically feasible.
The resulting interaction principles for the confidence screen became a foundation for our tech client for how the vehicle communicates with passengers: when to explain, when to simply reassure through consistent behavior, and how to visually and verbally express the car’s “intent” in ways that support comfort, comprehension, and long-term trust in autonomous driving.
digital autonomous vehicle Work was just the latest chapter of Teague’s twenty-year relationship with Intel.
RESULTS
Formalized for Intel in a deliverable we call Trust Interactions, which pinpoint and prioritize what information and assurances people really need in order to trust in AV technology
Gave life to Intel’s autonomous vehicle technology plans