Designers’ Views on Behaviorism, Dependency Concerns and Ethics in Gamification

Gamification is increasingly employed to enhance user engagement, yet these interventions may risk promoting psychological dependency and, depending on their specific design and context, undermining intrinsic motivation. This exploratory study aims to investigate how designers conceptualize behaviorist design principles and navigate the resulting ethical tensions. Employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to investigate the lived experiences of 12 UI/UX designers and design students, the analysis highlights three central themes: participants’ retrospective accounts of shifting from an aesthetic-driven to a behavior-focused design orientation, the navigation of an experienced ethical vacuum, and a perceived deficiency in formal industry guidelines. These insights point to the potential value of developing shared design principles to support more responsible gamification practices, though further research is needed before such principles could inform formal industry standards.