Purpose: Drawing upon the motivational affordance theory, this paper aims to investigate how gamification design and human motivational needs are associated in extant literature.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a literature analysis of 60 journal articles that studied motivational influences of gamification in information technology design. Content analysis was used to identify game design features and motivation variables studied in prior literature, and correspondence analysis was used to show the co-occurrence of game design features and basic motivational needs.Findings: The results showed that four types of game design features and eight basic motivational needs are studied in this pool of literature. Correspondence analysis indicates some interesting associations between game design features and basic human needs.Research limitations/implications: This research used a motivational affordance perspective to interpret the impact of game design features and suggested directions for future investigations. It is limited due to its sample size and considered as an exploratory study.Practical implications: This research provided suggestions for technology designers that game design features vary in their motivational influence, and therefore, game design features should be used accordingly to meet users’ motivational needs.Originality/value: This research is one of initial studies which explored the association between game design features and basic motivational needs. The findings of this study provide the groundwork for guidelines and strategies to facilitate motivational design in information technology.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the participation behaviors in the context of crowdsourcing projects from the perspective of gamification. Design/methodology/approach: This paper first proposed a model to depict the effect of four categories of game elements on three types of motivation based upon several motivation theories, which may, in turn, influence user participation. Then, 5 × 2 between-subject Web experiments were designed for collecting data and validating this model. Findings: Game elements which provide participants with rewards and recognitions or remind participants of the completion progress of their tasks may positively influence the extrinsic motivation, whereas game elements which can help create a fantasy scene may strengthen intrinsic motivation. Besides, recognition-kind and progress-kind game elements may trigger the internalization of extrinsic motivation. In addition, when a task is of high complexity, the effects from game elements on extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation will be less prominent, whereas the internalization of extrinsic motivation may benefit from the increase of task complexity. Originality/value: This study may uncover the motivation mechanism of several different kinds of game elements, which may help to find which game elements are more effective in enhancing engagement and participation in crowdsourcing projects. Besides, as task complexity is used as a moderator, one may be able to identify whether task complexity is able to influence the effects from game elements on motivations. Last, but not the least, this study will indicate the interrelationship between game elements, individual motivation and user participation, which can be adapted by other scholars.

Purpose: Drawing upon the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the self-regulation framework, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how factors for social media continuance behaviors work differently between social networking sites and microblogging.Design/methodology/approach: A survey method was used to collect two samples of 557 social networking sites users and 568 microblogging users. The proposed research model was tested with the structural equation modeling technique.Findings: The empirical results demonstrate that the impacts of influencing factors on users’ continuance behaviors vary by types of social media services. Information sharing has a stronger impact on microblog users’ satisfaction than social network users while social interaction has a stronger impact on satisfaction for social network users than microblog users. In addition, interpersonal influence is more effective in shaping satisfaction for the social network users while media influence is more effective in shaping satisfaction for the microblog users.Originality/value: This is one of the first studies that integrate TPB with Bagozzi’s self-regulation framework to understand the behavioral model of social networking and microblogging continuance. The findings show that the impacts of attitudinal beliefs regarding information sharing and social interaction on social media users’ satisfaction are different across social networking and microblogging contexts. Moreover, this study also reveals different effects of two specific subjective norms – interpersonal and media influence – on continued use of social networking and microblogging.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how game framing and task framing influence experienced meaningfulness (eudaimonia) and perceived enjoyment (hedonia), which, in turn, can account for user participation behavior in citizen science projects. Design/methodology/approach: The authors designed and implemented a citizen science system, Citizen Sort, and used a survey method to investigate to what extent game framing and task framing influence participation behavior. PLS–SEM was used to test research hypotheses with 76 Citizen Sort participants. Findings: Analysis confirmed that game framing and task framing have a significant impact on perceived enjoyment, but showed that only task framing has a direct effect on experienced meaningfulness. The effects of experienced meaningfulness on participation were fully mediated by perceived enjoyment. Content analysis of qualitative data revealed additional insights. Research limitations/implications: This research is limited due to its sample size and considered as an exploratory study, in which PLS–SEM was used to identify the impact of game framing and task framing as well as support the theory development regarding the dual nature of citizen science games. Practical implications: This research provided suggestions for scientists, designers and project initiators that game framing and task framing should be effectively integrated to provide enjoyable and meaningful experiences so as to promote user contribution. Originality/value: This research is one of initial studies which explored the impact of dual nature of citizen science games. The findings of this study provide the groundwork for guidelines and strategies to facilitate user contribution in citizen science projects.

Crowd rating derives a collective value based on massive homogeneous contributions from individual users, where using gamification design is a promising approach to encouraging users’ motivation and participation. Drawing upon self-determination theory and motivational affordances theory, this study investigates how different gamification objects, as building blocks for feedback-giving mechanics, affect users’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (i.e., compensation and enjoyment), which in turn affect their participation intention. We also examined the role of task complexity in moderating the gamified effects of feedback-giving mechanics. We conducted a four (gamification objects: leaderboards, progress, virtual characters, and plain) by two (task complexity: low and high) between-subject experiment with 402 subjects. The results suggested that feedback-giving as a critical gamification mechanic can motivate participants intrinsically or extrinsically. Specifically, leaderboards and progress positively influenced compensation, and leaderboards and virtual characters positively influenced enjoyment. Task complexity moderated the gamified effects of feedback-giving mechanics on compensation and enjoyment. With a higher task complexity, leaderboards even result in a higher level of enjoyment. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of feedback-giving mechanics in crowd rating systems, and practically, suggests that the design of feedback-giving and task complexity should be effectively integrated to reach compensational and enjoyable motivation to encourage user engagement in crowd rating activities.