Do Hexad User Types Matter? Effects of (Non-) Personalized Gamification on Task Performance and User Experience in an Image Tagging Task.

The perception of gamification elements differs across users, which is why personalizing gamified systems is important. Past research showed that the Hexad user types model is particularly suitable for this purpose by demonstrating correlations between user types and gamification elements. However, previous studies were mostly survey-based, i.e. relied on participants' rating of gamification elements based on e.g. textual descriptions or storyboards. Thus, the question whether personalization based on Hexad user types provides benefits in implemented gameful systems was neglected. We contribute to this by investigating the effects of (contra-) tailoring the set of gamification elements to a user's Hexad type on performance and user experience, assessed with survey and physiological measures, in an image tagging context. In a lab study (N=29), we found that gamification increases performance and affects psychophysiological measures of arousal. Moreover, we demonstrate that personalization increases enjoyment, positively-valenced affective experiences and participants' absorption in the task at hand.