Gulfstream My Cabin
A digital experience that puts complete control of the aircraft environment into the hands of passengers and crew — from lighting and temperature to entertainment and real-time flight data.
A new standard for in-flight experience
The Gulfstream My Cabin application is a comprehensive digital control platform designed for use on Gulfstream's fleet of ultra-long-range business jets. It transforms how passengers and crew interact with the aircraft environment — replacing legacy physical panels with an elegant, touch-first interface that manages everything from cabin lighting and temperature to entertainment systems and real-time flight information.
The project encompasses three interconnected features within a single My Cabin ecosystem: the core tablet and phone interface (GTS + PCU), an in-app My Flight experience for real-time flight tracking, a Lighting control system unlike anything in business aviation, and a Wearable companion for crew on Apple Watch.
In compliance with my non-disclosure agreement, I've omitted and generalised certain confidential information from this case study. The insights, design rationale, and research findings shared here are my own and don't necessarily represent the views of Gulfstream Aerospace.
Luxury, re-platformed
Gulfstream aircraft represent the pinnacle of business aviation — commanding multi-million dollar price points and serving a clientele that expects nothing short of perfection. Yet the cabin management experience lagged behind: physical control panels were fixed in location, required crew intermediation for simple tasks, and offered no personalisation.
The team partnered with Gulfstream to design and develop a modern, touch-based cabin management system spanning multiple aircraft from their fleet — on iPads, Android tablets, iOS and Android phones, and Apple Watch — all while conforming to the exacting brand standards of one of aviation's most prestigious names.
Large-Cabin Aircraft
Gulfstream's large-cabin flagship models required a comprehensive layout-aware control system, with zone-based management for lighting, temperature, and entertainment across up to four distinct cabin zones.
Super Midsize & Midsize Aircraft
Smaller-cabin variants demanded a parallel but distinct interface, adapted for a different cabin footprint — ensuring the design system was flexible enough to serve the full range of Gulfstream models.
Designing for the world's most demanding passengers
The design challenge was not simply to digitise existing physical controls. It was to reimagine the entire experience of being on a private jet — making crew more effective, passengers more empowered, and the overall cabin atmosphere feel like an extension of the Gulfstream brand.
Dual-user mental models
The application serves two fundamentally different users simultaneously: crew members who need operational efficiency and full system access, and passengers who need effortless, curated control over their personal comfort.
Environment-aware design constraints
Aircraft cabins operate in unusual conditions: variable lighting from near-dark to direct sunlight, turbulence-induced hand instability, and the need for crew to perform tasks rapidly while standing.
Real-time system feedback at altitude
Every action in the app triggers a physical change in the aircraft — lighting shifts, temperature adjusts, window shades move. The UI had to communicate system state accurately and immediately.
Regulatory and safety context
Certain controls — particularly those that intersect with safety systems — required crew-only access with appropriate confirmation patterns.
Cross-platform coherence
The design system had to work across iOS and Android tablets, iOS and Android phones, and Apple Watch — five distinct form factors — while maintaining a single, coherent Gulfstream brand experience.
Lead Product Designer
I led product design across the full Gulfstream My Cabin ecosystem — from initial discovery and concept through to engineering handoff and App Store delivery.
Cross-functional partners
Gulfstream UX Team
Core client stakeholders providing domain expertise, aircraft system knowledge, and approval authority for design directions and brand alignment.
Engineering Team
iOS, Android, and systems engineers translating design specifications into production code, with close collaboration on hardware interaction patterns.
Cabin Systems Integration
Aircraft systems specialists who defined the data contracts between the app and the aircraft's cabin management hardware.
Avionics & Connectivity
Specialists ensuring the app's communications architecture aligned with aircraft network topology and latency characteristics at altitude.
Brand & Visual Design
Gulfstream brand team ensuring every visual decision aligned with the luxury aviation positioning of the product.
UX Research & Testing
Usability studies conducted with crew representatives and frequent private aviation passengers to validate interaction patterns across the full ecosystem.
Control at your fingertips
The My Cabin application is the operational heart of the experience — a full-featured cabin management system that spans three distinct form factors, each purpose-built for a specific user and context.
GTS — Galley Touchscreen
Custom, certified 10.1" touchscreens embedded in the galley. Used primarily by trained crew, the GTS exposes the full depth of the system: lighting, climate, entertainment, electrical systems, and advanced crew-only controls.
PCU — Personal Control Unit
The passenger-facing application available for download on the iOS App Store. Designed for passengers' own iPhones and iPads, the PCU gives travellers curated control over their personal environment.
Wearable — Apple Watch
A companion app for crew worn on the wrist during flight. The wearable surfaces flight status, real-time system alerts, and attendant call notifications — giving crew situational awareness without returning to the galley.
All three surfaces support both Light Mode and Dark Mode. A dark-adapted crew member at 2am should not be hit with a white UI flooding the cabin. The design system was built from the ground up to support both themes with equal visual quality.
A whole aircraft, one screen
Key feature areas
Lighting Control
Zone-based and seat-specific lighting with preset moods — Relax, Read, Movie, Sleep, Energise, Dining — plus circadian rhythm scenes on the GTS.
Climate Management
Temperature control by zone with a visually distinctive heat-map overlay on the floor plan. Steppers replace sliders for precision adjustment in turbulence.
Entertainment Routing
Seat-level media assignment with source selection across Satellite TV, On Demand, Apple TV, Blu-ray, Kaleidescape, SiriusXM, and HDMI inputs.
Window Shades
Individually selectable shade controls displayed as visual indicators on the floor plan, with a zone-select mode for mass operation.
System Status & Crew Notifications (GTS)
A persistent status layer surfaces Water A / Water B / Waste levels, galley power states, essential power, microwave door status, and TTD — all the operational data crew need at a glance.
Galley Touchscreen (GTS) — Embedded Crew Interface
Custom certified 10.1" displays embedded in the galley and vestibule. The GTS is the operational hub — crew can access every system from a single interface.
PCU — Personal Control Unit
The passenger-facing interface, available on iPhone and Android via the App Store. The PCU gives travellers direct control over their personal environment without crew intermediation.
Why a floor plan, not a menu? Moving to a spatial floor plan as the primary navigation metaphor reduced task completion time in prototype testing by an average of 34% for crew, and improved first-attempt success rates for seat-level operations from 61% to 89%.
Re-imagining the G700 lighting system
Lighting is one of the most powerful features within the My Cabin ecosystem. On ultra-long-range jets like the G700, passengers may spend 14–18 continuous hours in the air, crossing multiple time zones. The quality, tunability, and responsiveness of cabin lighting has a direct, measurable impact on passenger comfort and circadian health.
Lighting increment resolution
The existing lighting system offered 300 steps between dim and bright — but critically, those steps were distributed unevenly. Passengers and crew repeatedly complained that the lights couldn't get dim enough. The solution was to redesign the brightness curve to distribute adjustment points evenly at lower levels.
Circadian rhythm support
A Gulfstream aircraft can travel for up to 18 hours, crossing numerous time zones. The answer was a full-spectrum up-wash and down-wash LED array with a color temperature range from 2000K (deep amber) to 7000K (cool daylight), designed to support the body's natural circadian rhythm.
Seamless zonal blending
An individually addressable LED array with 1/32" LED spacing eliminated hotspots and allowed smooth, continuous light gradients across zones. Adjacent zones blend seamlessly.
User-intent interface design
Rather than surfacing color pickers, kelvin sliders, and brightness percentages, the design team reframed the question: instead of asking users to configure a lighting system, ask them what they want to experience. The result was the Moods and Scenes interface.
65,000+ Steps of Smoothness
The previous system and all competitive aircraft offered approximately 300 brightness steps. The new system delivers over 65,000 — giving crew and passengers an essentially infinite gradient of light.
0.1%–100% Dim Range
The dimmest lighting system available in any business aircraft. 0.1% produces a barely-perceptible glow — enough for safe cabin navigation during complete darkness.
1/32" LED Spacing
Individual LEDs spaced at 1/32" eliminate hotspots entirely. Light blends so smoothly that passengers cannot identify where one zone ends and the next begins.
2000K – 7000K Range
From deep amber candlelight at 2000K through neutral daylight to cool sky at 7000K. The system can automatically follow a circadian programme for the full flight duration.
At a glance, on the wrist
The Wearable is a companion feature within the My Cabin ecosystem, extending to Apple Watch, giving crew members quick access to the most time-critical information and controls without requiring them to retrieve a tablet.
Real-time flight details
TTD (Time to Destination), altitude, ground speed, and ETA — surfaced in a glanceable layout optimised for the Apple Watch display constraints.
System status alerts
Watch Alert notifications for galley events, door status, lavatory occupancy, and essential power state.
Destination weather
Current conditions at the destination airport — temperature, conditions, and wind — giving crew advance notice for passenger briefings.
Attendant call management
Instant notification of passenger call requests, with seat location context so crew can respond efficiently.
In a contextual inquiry study with 6 crew participants, crew retrieved their tablet an average of 23 times for status checks that required no action. Introducing the wearable prototype reduced unnecessary tablet retrieval by 68% in the follow-up session.
Validating against the real world
Research for the Gulfstream My Cabin ecosystem was conducted across multiple rounds, spanning contextual inquiry with cabin crew, usability testing with passenger proxies, and accessibility evaluations against the unique perceptual environment of a pressurised aircraft cabin.
"The hardest part of my job isn't managing passengers — it's managing information. I need to know what's happening in the whole cabin at once."
— Cabin Crew Participant, Contextual Inquiry Study 1Information fragmentation
Crew reported that legacy panel systems required physical displacement to access information — a significant friction point during service.
Navigation-by-category mismatch
Early tab-based navigation organised controls by system type. Crew consistently navigated by location intent — "I want to change the forward galley." The floor plan metaphor resolved this.
Confirmation anxiety
Crew were hesitant to commit actions without a preview of the result. Adding live preview states significantly reduced hesitation time.
Attendant call latency tolerance
Crew expected attendant call notifications to appear within 2 seconds of a passenger pressing the call button. Latency above 3 seconds caused crew to check the system rather than trusting it.
Touch target sizing in turbulence
At 40pt touch targets, crew error rates in turbulence simulation increased by 22% versus 56pt targets. The final design uses 56pt minimum for all actionable controls.
Night mode adoption
Crew working during dark flight phases found standard display brightness disruptive to their own dark adaptation. Night mode became one of the highest-rated features in post-launch feedback.
"I'd actually use this. I now don't have to interact with the crew — this has improved my overall flight experience."
— Frequent Private Aviation Passenger, Usability Study 2A system built for altitude
The Gulfstream design system was engineered as a full design language spanning color, typography, icons, layout grids, components, and interaction patterns across every surface the ecosystem touches. Every token was validated for accessibility against the deep navy backgrounds that define the Gulfstream aesthetic.
Color System
Built around Main Blue and Gold as brand anchors, with a full state-color system for interactive feedback.
Typography
State System
Button System (GCMS)
Icon Language
The design system covers every device target — from the GTS galley display at 1280×800 and iPad Pro at 1366×1024, down to iPhone at 375×812 and Apple Watch at 184×224. Grid specifications, button sizes, font scales, and touch targets are individually tuned for each breakpoint.
Layout Grids
GTS — 1280 × 800
Security Margin: 48px
Column: 74px
Gutter: 26px
12-column landscape grid
My Cabin iOS iPad — 1366 × 1024
Security Margin: 22px
Column: 60px
Gutter: 24px
Landscape + portrait supported
PCU — iPhone 375 × 812
Security Margin: 15px
Column: 50px
Gutter: 9px
Portrait primary
Wearable — iOS 184 × 224
Security Margin: 9px
Column: 36px
Gutter: 7px
Android: 250 × 250px circular
What I'd carry forward
Spatial metaphors beat categorical ones in operational contexts
The decision to lead with a floor plan rather than a navigation menu was the single highest-impact design choice in the project. When users are operating in physical space — as crew always are — anchoring the interface to that space dramatically reduces cognitive work.
Wearables require ruthless scope discipline
The most valuable design work on the wearable was the work we chose not to do. Every feature that didn't genuinely benefit from wrist-immediacy was cut. I've learned to ask "does this earn the wrist?" before designing any wearable feature.
Luxury UX is about absence, not addition
The Gulfstream brand taught me that the highest expression of luxury in a digital interface is the removal of friction, not the addition of features. Every modal confirmation, every loading state, every unclear label is a luxury brand failure.
Design for two users simultaneously — but never confuse them
Serving crew and passengers from a shared design system while maintaining entirely separate mental models for each was the most technically complex design challenge of the project. Good role-based design is invisible to each user.