On 24 July 2025, AINIGMA organized and hosted the HERA Early Need Finding Workshop as part of Task 4.1, bringing together 23 participants representing HERA Labs and other key stakeholder groups. The workshop marked an important milestone in the development of the HERA Community Portal by ensuring that stakeholder needs and expectations were captured at an early stage of the design process.
The workshop provided a collaborative environment in which participants shared their requirements, ideas, and expectations for the future portal. Through interactive discussions, stakeholders explored potential functionalities and identified common themes, priorities, and preferences that would guide the portal’s development.
As part of the co-creation process, participants reviewed early concepts and mock-ups of the Community Portal and provided valuable feedback on usability, accessibility, and user experience. These discussions helped the project team gain a deeper understanding of user needs and expectations, ensuring that future developments would be aligned with the priorities of the HERA community.
The insights gathered during the workshop were documented and analysed in a structured format. The outcomes will support the development of user personas, user stories, and use cases, which will subsequently be validated with stakeholders to ensure their accuracy and relevance.
The workshop also contributed to the identification and documentation of the portal’s technical requirements by translating user needs into actionable specifications while considering privacy, security, and regulatory requirements.
The Early Need Finding Workshop represented a significant step towards the creation of a user-centred and collaborative HERA Community Portal, laying the foundation for a platform designed to support engagement, knowledge sharing, and cooperation across the HERA ecosystem.
