GLIDE

Designing a Calm, Predictable Travel Experience

GLIDE is an all-in-one travel companion that guides users through every phase of their journey with real-time foresight, navigation, and reassurance.

Final Pitch Deck ↗

Institution University of Michigan, School of Information

Course SI 611: Product Discovery

Timeline Fall 2025

Team 3 Members

Problem

Air travel is stressful, fragmented, and reactive.

Travelers juggle 3–5 separate apps for flights, airports, navigation, and anxiety management, often learning critical information too late.

Our focus: end-to-end journey design, in-flight anxiety support, and integrating real-time guidance into a single coherent experience.

How might we help travelers anticipate what is coming next, not just react when something goes wrong?

Research

Research confirmed the need.

The gap wasn't demand. It was integration.

67.6% report moderate–high travel stress

84.6% find real-time updates highly useful

96% already use travel apps

Product Strategy

Desirability, Feasibility, Viability

Desirability GLIDE is desirable due to strong traveler demand for stress-free, personalized travel tools in a $1.5T market with 850M app users.

Feasibility GLIDE leverages accessible tech like APIs, AR, and AI, making it simple and scalable to build.

Viability With 4.5B global air travelers and 300M+ digital-first flyers, GLIDE taps into a huge, under-served market ready for a smarter and calmer travel experience.

Design Decision #1

The first constraint was multi-stage coordination.

Each stage has its own timing variables, risks, and dependencies.

Leaving home late affects security timing.

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Security delays affect boarding.

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Gate changes affect navigation.

The system needed to model these dependencies clearly without overwhelming users. I designed a unified journey timeline that updates dynamically based on the traveler's stage.