Narrate the Passing Scenery for Blind Passengers in a Tesla: In-Car Feature Design

You are a product manager at Tesla. Design an in-car feature that helps passengers who are visually impaired enjoy a trip: taking in the nature around them, a scenic stretch of road, or the mountains coming up ahead. Explain who you are designing for, what the feature does, how it works inside the car, and how you would know it succeeds. ```hint Work from what is still available Start from what the passenger can still perceive (sound, touch, temperature, conversation with the people in the car) and from what the car itself already knows about the road and the landscape around it. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the passenger fully blind or partly sighted, and did they lose their sight later in life or never have it? That changes how descriptions should be worded. - Is the passenger traveling with a sighted driver and companions, or alone in a car that drives itself? - Must the feature use the car's existing hardware (cameras, speakers, screens, climate control) through a software update, or can it add new hardware? - Which trips matter most: occasional scenic road trips or everyday drives? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear user choice (degree of vision loss, alone or with companions) and the emotional need behind enjoying the trip, such as sharing the moment with the others in the car. - Solutions that turn the surroundings into non-visual experiences, prioritized into a first version. - Driver safety and distraction, the accuracy of AI-generated descriptions, and the privacy of people the cameras see. - How the feature is developed and tested with blind users, and how success is measured beyond usage counts. ### Follow-up Questions - The narration describes a lake that is not there. How do you prevent and handle wrong descriptions? - How would the design differ for a passenger who lost their sight as an adult and one who has been blind since birth? - The driver finds the narration distracting. What do you change?