MW: Stakeholder Workshop

Background

👂🏻 Prioritizing the Needs of Each Persona

After our previous exploration, we suggested identifying and prioritizing the needs of each persona in a collaborative setting. We aimed to leverage the personas we created earlier through the exploration. (PDF,  2 Pages)

👩🏼‍💻 How We Created Personas

We organized a quick internal session to build personas. Leveraging the core needs as personality factors, we identified combinations that eventually became a persona. 👉🏻 Click here to have a closer look.

🦹🏻 Personas

Based on the personality factors, we created 4 personas, each with distinct characteristics & stories.  (PDF, 5 Pages)

Objectives

1️⃣ Understand each persona through empathy

2️⃣ Define the core needs of each persona

3️⃣ Prioritize the core needs of each persona

Methods

🗣 Collaborative Workshops with Stakeholders

After the previous exploratory research, where we defined the potential user needs. We then To define and prioritize the core needs of each persona, we suggested collaborative workshops with various teams of stakeholders.

👥 Participants

Stakeholders from various teams and departments participated in the workshops, with 91% expressing their intention to participate again in similar collaborative sessions.

📋 Defining Opportunities Together

We engaged the stakeholders in collaborative exercises, such as ‘understanding personas’, ’empathy mapping’, ‘prioritization’, and ‘how might we?’ exercises, ultimately defining opportunities to tackle.

• Collaborative Activity #1. Understanding Personas  (PDF, 2 Pages)

• Collaborative Activity #2. Empathy Mapping  (PDF, 9 Pages)

• Collaborative Activity #3. Prioritization  (PDF, 3 Pages)

• Collaborative Activity #4. How Might We?  (PDF, 4 Pages)

Reporting

🔖 ‘Core Needs’ of MapleStory Worlds’ Potential Users

We’ve identified a list of core needs of potential users of MapleStory Worlds, categorized by similar themes as follows:

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🔖 The KANO Model: Prioritization & Categorization

We encouraged stakeholders to work together while prioritizing core needs from the perspective of each persona. (PDF, 4 Pages)

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Research Impact

We helped stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and levels of seniority collaboratively define strategic priorities and opportunities. Additionally, 91% expressed interest in participating in future sessions.

📌 Strategic & Cultural Impact

• Developed Empathy with Users
  • Helped stakeholders from various teams build empathy and gain a deeper understanding of each persona.
• Collaboratively Prioritized Goals
  • Helped stakeholders from diverse backgrounds collaboratively define strategic priorities and opportunities.
  • Helped create a culture where stakeholders, regardless of seniority, can openly engage and share ideas.
• Aligned Stakeholder Perspectives
  • Through the persona empathy process, we brought diverse stakeholders onto the same page.

📌 Internal Impact

• Introduced Collaborative Workshops
  • The team launched and facilitated its first collaborative workshop, establishing a strong initial case example.

📋 Workshop Surveys (Before/After)

• Pre-Workshop Survey: Initially, stakeholders had conflicting opinions on the product direction. To address this, we presented data collected from the pre-workshop survey at the start of each session to raise awareness on the topic.

• Post-Workshop Survey: After each session, we sent out an exit survey, and the results were encouraging—91% expressed a desire to participate again. Below is a summary of their overall impressions.

My Role

In the beginning, MapleStory Worlds was merely an idea. I took the lead in research, identifying key needs and opportunities, laying the groundwork for its early stages, and fostering long-term collaboration with stakeholders.

1️⃣ Leading Strategic · Tactical Research

I managed a small team of researchers over a two-year collaboration with the product team. Our efforts encompassed diverse areas, including gameplay experience, content creation, and publishing, utilizing generative research and co-creation methodologies.

2️⃣ Uncovering Needs and Opportunities

In the early stages, we explored user needs and opportunities in first-mover metaverse and social platforms like Roblox, Minecraft, and TikTok. As the project evolved, we expanded our focus to include diverse user types—regular players, creators, and streamers.

Conclusion

📌 Early Stage · Long-Term Collaboration: How it all went

Wrapping up this long-term collaboration, I gave a speech at MCI22 (MapleStory Worlds’ Creators Invitational 2022) on the topic of ‘Co-Creating MapleStory Worlds with the User’. I highlighted our extensive co-creation and collaboration with diverse stakeholders and users, sharing various studies and insights gained from them.

Research Impact

📌 Cultural Impact

Initiated during the ideation phase, the early stage collaboration defined target users through personas, uncovering their needs and opportunity areas. This collaborative design thinking process, involving designers, developers, and users—including creators and streamers—helped shape the product’s go-to-market strategy.

📌 Product Impact

This approach demonstrated how early collaboration can drive long-term product success. MapleStory World achieved a successful launch and has since become a beloved service, now with 60K+ active players, continuing to thrive.

At the conclusion of the collaboration, user needs-based heuristics were provided as a lasting KPI for the product team.

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