How We Build Trust
Trust is not a feature you add at the end. It is a quality that emerges from how you listen, how you design, and how honestly you reflect on what you have built. Our work begins with people, not technology, and every proposal we make is grounded in ethical responsibility and human-centred practice.
Our Process
Principles that guide our work
These are not marketing promises. They are commitments we make to ourselves and to the communities we work with. They shape how we approach every engagement, from initial research through to final recommendations.
Participatory Design
We work with the people our designs are meant to serve, not just for them. Older adults, children, caregivers, clinicians, and educators shape every concept from the earliest stages. Their lived experience is the foundation of our work.
Risk Mapping Before Building
Before proposing solutions, we map the landscape of potential harm. Who could be excluded? What could be misunderstood? Where does trust break down? We identify risks first, so design decisions are grounded in real-world consequences.
Transparency by Default
If a user cannot understand what an AI system is doing and why, we treat that as a design failure. Every interface we propose makes the system's reasoning visible, its limitations honest, and its boundaries clear.
Documentation and Accountability
We document our design rationale, our assumptions, and the trade-offs we make. This is not just good practice; it is how we hold ourselves accountable and how others can build responsibly on our work.
Learning Before Scaling
We do not rush to deploy. Our approach prioritises small, carefully observed pilots with real users before any recommendation to scale. Understanding what works, and what does not, requires patience and honest reflection.
Care as a Design Principle
The populations we design for are often those with the least power in technology conversations: children, elderly people, patients, communities under pressure. We treat care, dignity, and respect as non-negotiable design requirements.
The Founder
Jennifer Simonds
Jennifer is a responsible AI and public sector designer whose work sits at the intersection of community wellbeing and ethical technology. Her practice is driven by a simple conviction: the people most affected by AI systems should have the strongest voice in how those systems are designed.
With a background spanning public services, user research, and service design, Jennifer brings a long-term perspective to every engagement. She is less interested in what technology can do and more interested in what it should do, and for whom.
TrustBridge is the expression of that commitment: a practice dedicated to designing AI experiences that are careful, inclusive, and accountable to the communities they serve.
A note on honesty
We are at an early stage. The case studies on this site are design proposals, not shipped products. The interview frameworks are tools we have developed for structured inquiry, not completed research findings.
We share this work openly because we believe the design conversation around AI trust needs more voices grounded in care, ethics, and real-world complexity, not just technical optimism.
If you are working on similar challenges, or if you see something here that could be improved, we would genuinely welcome the conversation.
Interested in working together?
Whether you are a public institution, a responsible technology company, or a researcher exploring similar questions, we would be glad to hear from you.