As more drones enter urban airspace, multiple agencies and operators are deploying UAS simultaneously without shared protocols, communication channels, or coordination frameworks. This fragmentation leads to operational inefficiencies, safety risks, and low trust between stakeholders. There is a critical need to understand the ecosystem, align stakeholder priorities, and design a system for safe, efficient, and collaborative multi-UAS operations in cities.
How can multiple organizations safely coordinate drone operations in a shared airspace?
By engaging directly with operators, agencies, and regulators, design research uncovers the lived realities, workflows, and pain points that shape coordination in the field. It enables us to map the ecosystem, reveal misalignments, and make hidden frictions visible.
Through synthesis, facilitation, and co-creation, design research translates diverse stakeholder needs into shared understanding, frameworks, and actionable opportunities - building alignment and paving the way for coordination solutions that are realistic, adoptable, and trusted by the people who will use them.
Scoping the Research: WWWWH Mapping
To frame the discovery phase, I mapped the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the research to clarify what the design research and workshops needed to uncover.
Who: Identify the key stakeholder categories influenced by UAS adoption, along with the decision-makers and end-users within those organizations.
What: Understand the operational pain points, and determine the UAS features, capabilities, and technologies stakeholders need to address them.
When: Explore current and future adoption horizons, and structure the research to begin with an initial discovery session to gather broad requirements before deep-dive workshops.
Where: Consider the operating environments and real-world contexts in which drones will be deployed across various use cases.
Why: Uncover the motivation behind UAS adoption- what value stakeholders seek, what problems they aim to solve, and the strategic benefits they expect.
How: Examine existing processes, methods, and workflows stakeholders use to integrate drones into their operations, including implementation challenges.
This WWWWH mapping helped transform a broad brief into a structured research direction, aligning the focus of interviews and workshops to generate meaningful, actionable insights.
Targeted Information Gathering -
Establish what specific needs/insights to extract from each stakeholder type
Ecosystem Understanding - Map relationships, dependencies, and potential conflicts between different actors
Workshop Design - Create focused discussion groups and relevant scenarios for each category
Requirements Translation - Ensure technical development addresses real-world operational needs across all user types
Designing & Facilitating the Stakeholder Workshop
Categorizing Stakeholders
Purpose of the Workshop
Translate stakeholder needs into technical + operational requirement
Understand real needs vs. assumed needs
Identify exposure, concerns, and adoption barriers around UAS
Preparation
Created surveys to capture stakeholder needs, capabilities, and expectations
Designed interview + workshop questions to uncover desired UAS features and operational use cases
Conducted outreach across user groups to ensure diverse representation
Workshop Facilitation
Led discovery interviews to inform workshop structure
Summarized early research to align participants before co-creation
Facilitated discussions to surface missing insights, concerns, and edge cases
Expected Outcome
Clear stakeholder requirements and priority use cases
Identified gaps in adoption readiness and operational maturity
Alignment on next-step research focus
Before designing the workshop, I conducted individual stakeholder interviews to uncover real operational challenges and decision-making factors around UAS use. These conversations helped surface unfiltered insights that would not emerge in a group setting.
What I aimed to learn:
• Current UAS capabilities, limitations, and operational gaps
• Regulatory hurdles and approval processes stakeholders face
• Budget, procurement, and adoption constraints influencing decision-making
Purpose:
To gather deep, honest context that would shape the workshop agenda, ensuring activities were grounded in real needs, not assumptions.
Pre-Workshop Interviews
Decoding Interviews
To make the session accessible to stakeholders, I facilitated the workshop online using a collaborative Miro board.
This format allowed participants to engage in real time, contribute simultaneously, and build on each other’s inputs regardless of location.
I structured the session with a clear flow- beginning with a brief research playback for shared context, followed by guided activities and collaborative exercises designed to surface needs, align perspectives, and validate insights gathered during pre-interviews.
Scenario Briefing
Introduce a shared situation where multiple UAS operations overlap.
Ground participants in a common context.
Collaboration Mapping
Two-row exercise: “I need…” / “I can provide…”.
Surfaces interdependencies and potential gaps.
Challenges Mapping
Each stakeholder identifies key risks and barriers.
Cluster inputs into themes: safety, regulation, operations, technology, perception.
Solution Brainstorming
Group ideation of mechanisms for coordination.
Explore policy, process, technology, and communication options.
How Would This Change How You Work?
Stakeholders reflect on how multi-UAS operations affect their roles.
Capture both opportunities and obstacles.
Prioritization
Vote on the most urgent requirements and solutions.
Creates a ranked list of shared priorities.
Facilitating Workshop
Workshop Activities
Ecosystem & Systems Mapping
Using the combined interview and workshop data, I will build a multi-layered ecosystem map that visualizes the relationships, information flows, responsibilities, and gaps across agencies involved in urban aerial operations. This becomes a foundation for system-level design recommendations.
User Experience & Service Mapping
I will develop service blueprints and experience maps that outline how different stakeholder groups interact with a coordinated UAS ecosystem. This includes identifying decision points, handoffs, cognitive load impacts, and opportunities for improved workflows.
Define Design Requirements & Opportunity Areas
Based on user-centered insights, I will establish design principles, experience requirements, and opportunity spaces that can guide development of coordination tools, interfaces, policies, or service models.
Prepare Communication Artifacts for Cross-Agency Alignment
I will translate research into visual, accessible artifacts, such as frameworks, maps, and executive summaries, that support alignment across government, industry, and community partners.
Future Direction
