Design guidelines for Gamifying reading applications

Reading competes with an increasing number of leisure activities like video games. Consequently, written language skills are receding. Thus, motivating people to read is a problem that seems well-suited to gamification (i.e., the use of game design to motivate people to read). To investigate ways in which to gamify reading, we conducted a survey pilot study about how adding game mechanics to reading would encourage people to read more. We investigated the social nature of people talking about reading and the process of recommending books. We interviewed a gender-balanced group of participants to obtain more information about their reading habits for leisure, work, or academia. Our results indicate that people are reading for self-improvement purposes and not primarily for social reasons.