"Enable or Disable Gamification?" - Analyzing the Impact of Choice in a Gamified Image Tagging Task

This paper investigates a simple form of customization: giving users the choice to enable or disable gamification. We present a study (N=77) in the context of image tagging, in which a gamification approach was shown to be effective in previous work. In our case, some participants could enable or disable gamification after they had experienced the task with and without it. Other participants had no choice and did the task with or without game elements. The results indicate that those who are not attracted by the elements can be motivated to tag more through this choice. In contrast, those that like the elements are not affected by it. This suggests that systems should provide the option to disable gamification in the absence of more sophisticated tailoring.