1. The Gamification User
Types Hexad Scale
Gustavo F. Tondello, Rina R. Wehbe,
Lisa Diamond, Marc Busch,
Andrzej Marczewski, Lennart E. Nacke

2. Gamification
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Game design elements in non-game contexts (Deterding et al., 2011)
(Marczewski, 2015)
Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke. 2011. From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification.” Proc. of MindTrek '11, ACM.
Andrzej Marczewski. 2015. 48 Gamification elements, mechanics and ideas. Gamified UK.

3. Self-determination Theory
Autonomy
Competence
Relatedness
Meaning
Internalization
and Integration
Extrinsic
Motivation
Intrinsic
Motivation
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(Ryan & Deci, 2000)
R. Ryan & E. Deci. 2000. Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.
The American Psychologist 55, 1: 68–78.

4. Gamification User Types Hexad
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(Marczewski, 2015)
Do all users equally enjoy all game elements?
Theoretical References
• Self-determination theory
(Ryan & Deci, 2000)
• Player typologies
(Bartle, 2005)
Andrzej Marczewski. 2015. User Types. In Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play: Gamification, Game Thinking & Motivational Design. Gamified UK.
R. Ryan & E. Deci. 2000. Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.
The American Psychologist 55, 1: 68–78.
Richard Bartle. 2005. Virtual Worlds: Why People Play. Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2, 1.

5. Goals
Gap: no validated instrument for assessing user types
Goal: Propose and validate a survey measure for scoring
an individual in the six Hexad user types
Gap: no empirical evidence that the user types explain user’s
preferences for different game elements
Goal: Evaluate if the Hexad user types correspond to
user’s preferences for different game elements
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6. Female,
64
Male,
59
N/A, 10
Methods
1. Survey scale construction
• Expert workshop to generate survey items
• Expert rating to select the best 5 items per user type
2. Data collection and analysis
• 133 participants (40 in the follow-up) – aged 18-36
• demographic information
• Hexad user types
• game elements preferences
• personality (BFI-10 (Rammstedt & John, 2011))
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N=133
B. Rammstedt and O. John. 2007. Measuring personality in one minute or less: A 10-item short version of the Big Five
Inventory in English and German. Journal of Research in Personality 41, 1: 203–212.

7. Survey Validation
User Type α (5 items) α (4 items) r (5 items) r (4 items)
Philanthropist .896 .893 .850 ** .852 **
Socialiser .846 .838 .820 ** .853 **
Free Spirit .727 .723 .483 ** .631 **
Achiever .766 .759 .752 ** .798 **
Disruptor .728 .738 .611 ** .782 **
Player .689 .698 .387 * .357 *
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* p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.
Internal Consistency Test-Retest
Factor analysis results are available in the paper

8. Survey Availability
The full survey is available in the paper
Also online: https://gamified.uk/UserTypeTest2016/user-type-test.php
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9. Survey Scoring
Exact scoring per user type
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By main user type only
Philanthropist
24%
Achiever
24%
Free
Spirit
22%
Socialiser
19%
Player
10%
Disruptor
1%
N=133
22.36 22.18 22.09
20.33 20.99
14.94
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Philanthropist
Achiever
FreeSpirit
Socialiser
Player
Disruptor
Mean

10. Preferred Game Elements by User Types
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11. Preferred Game Elements by User Types
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12. Implications
Design
Supporting different user types
Personalizing the user experience
Research
Better understanding of
gamifications mechanisms and
effects
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Philanthropist
24%
Achiever
24%
Free
Spirit
22%
Socialiser
19%
Player
10%
Disruptor
1%
N=133

13. Limitations and Future Work
Repeat the study with a larger sample
Review the subscale for the Player type
Investigate motivations for Philanthropists on a focused
study
Investigate the role of the context in moderating the user
experience
Investigate the similarities of the Hexad with other player
type models
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14. Takeaways
Goal: Propose and validate a survey for the Hexad user types
A standard and validated 24-items survey for assessing Hexad
user types is now available (see the paper for details)
Goal: Evaluate if the user types correspond to user’s preferences
A table of preferred game elements per user type is now
available for:
• Supporting different user types
• Personalizing the user experience in gameful applications
• Further researching the mechanisms and effects of gamification
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15. Thank you!
The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968082
CONTACT
Gustavo F. Tondello
gustavo@tondello.com
@GustavoTondello
http://hcigames.com/
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Thanks to Marim Ganaba (HCI Games Group) for infographic design.