Disassembling gamification: the effects of points and meaning on user motivation and performance

Interest in gamification is growing steadily. But as the underlying mechanisms of gamification are not well understood yet, a closer examination of a gamified activity’s meaning and individual game design elements may provide more insights. We examine the effects of points – a basic element of gamification, – and meaningful framing – acknowledging participants’ contribution to a scientific cause, – on intrinsic motivation and performance in an online image annotation task. Based on these findings, we discuss implications and opportunities for future research on gamification.