Designing Leaderboards for Gamification: Perceived Differences Based on User Ranking, Application Domain, and Personality Traits

Leaderboards, a common gamification technique, are used to enhance engagement through social comparisons. Prior research has demonstrated the overall utility of leaderboards but has not examined their effectiveness when individuals are ranked at particular levels or when the technique is applied in different application domains, such as social networking, fitness, or productivity. In this paper, we present a survey study investigating how preferences for leaderboards change based on individual differences (personality traits), ranking, social scoping, and application domains. Our results show that a respondent's position on the leaderboard had important effects on their perception of the leaderboard and the surrounding app, and that participants rated leaderboards most favorably in fitness apps and least favorably in social networking contexts. More extraverted people reported more positive experiences with leaderboards despite their ranking or the application domain. We present design implications for creating leaderboards targeted at different domains and for different audiences.