Lennart Nacke

Dr. Lennart Nacke is a full professor at the University of Waterloo’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, where he leads the HCI Games Group. For about 20 years he has studied how people interact with technology, focusing on games, user experience, and gamification. His research asks what makes digital experiences engaging, how they shape behaviour, and how to tell whether a design helps the people who use it.

His current work covers responsible AI, deceptive design, and games that encourage physical activity. He studies the opportunities these technologies create and the problems they cause, especially when engagement comes at the cost of people’s autonomy.

He also teaches research methods and academic writing. Students and researchers learn from him how to turn an interesting idea into a clear question, a well-designed study, and a paper that makes a useful contribution. He writes about academic writing in his newsletter, The Write Insight.

news

Nov 10, 2026	I joined the Security Advisory Board of IMAGINE, a Horizon Europe project using gamification and digital storytelling for youth-crime prevention. I serve alongside Prof. Jérôme Ferret (University of Toulouse Capitole / TSE), Prof. Marco Lombardi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), and Prof. Dina Siegel (Utrecht University), with Andrew Staniforth, IMAGINE’s Project Security Officer, leading the board. Public project
Nov 05, 2026	Ten years after CHI PLAY 2016, our paper The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale won the CHI PLAY 2026 Lasting Impact Award. 10 years of the Hexad Scale · Talk slides
Nov 02, 2026	November 2 to 5: I’ll be at CHI PLAY 2026 in York, reconnecting with the games and HCI research community.
Oct 21, 2026	Vugar Ibrahimov and I host Cortex Compute, a podcast on AI developments and what they mean for professional work. Recent episode
Aug 24, 2026	I relaunched my How to Write Research Papers podcast with Phoebe Toups Dugas, talking CHI publishing and peer review. Episode

latest posts

Aug 25, 2026	How to become an irreplaceable researcher in 2026
Aug 11, 2026	How to build an AI Workflow You'll Actually Use
Jul 25, 2026	How Anthropic Turned AI Safety Into a Competitive Advantage

selected publications

Rushed by Discomfort, Trapped by Immersion: Users’ Experiences and Responses to Privacy Deceptive Design in Commercial VR Applications

Hilda Hadan, Michaela Valiquette, Lennart E. Nacke, and Leah Zhang-Kennedy

In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2026

Best Paper DOI Bib

Best Paper Award, ACM DIS 2026.

@inproceedings{hadan2026rushed,
  author = {Hadan, Hilda and Valiquette, Michaela and Nacke, Lennart E. and Zhang-Kennedy, Leah},
  title = {Rushed by Discomfort, Trapped by Immersion: Users' Experiences and Responses to Privacy Deceptive Design in Commercial VR Applications},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference},
  series = {DIS '26},
  pages = {210--235},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  doi = {10.1145/3800645.3812990},
}

Deceived by immersion: A systematic analysis of deceptive design in extended reality

Hilda Hadan, Lydia Choong, Leah Zhang-Kennedy, and Lennart E. Nacke

ACM Computing Surveys, 2024

DOI Bib

@article{hadan2024deceived,
  title = {Deceived by immersion: A systematic analysis of deceptive design in extended reality},
  author = {Hadan, Hilda and Choong, Lydia and Zhang-Kennedy, Leah and Nacke, Lennart E.},
  journal = {ACM Computing Surveys},
  volume = {56},
  number = {10},
  pages = {1--25},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.1145/3659945},
}

Communication sequences indicate team cohesion: A mixed-methods study of Ad Hoc league of legends teams

Evelyn T. S. Tan, Katja Rogers, Lennart E. Nacke, Anders Drachen, and Alex Wade

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2022

Best Paper DOI Bib

Best Paper Award, ACM CHI PLAY 2022.

@article{tan2022communication,
  title = {Communication sequences indicate team cohesion: A mixed-methods study of Ad Hoc league of legends teams},
  author = {Tan, Evelyn T. S. and Rogers, Katja and Nacke, Lennart E. and Drachen, Anders and Wade, Alex},
  journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction},
  volume = {6},
  number = {CHI PLAY},
  pages = {1--27},
  year = {2022},
  doi = {10.1145/3549488},
}

Development and Validation of the Player Experience Inventory: A Scale to Measure Player Experiences at the Level of Functional and Psychosocial Consequences

Vero Vanden Abeele, Katta Spiel, Lennart E. Nacke, Daniel Johnson, and Kathrin Gerling

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2020

Best Paper DOI Bib

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Best Paper Award, 2020.

@article{Abeele2020Development,
  author = {Abeele, Vero Vanden and Spiel, Katta and Nacke, Lennart E. and Johnson, Daniel and Gerling, Kathrin},
  title = {{Development and Validation of the Player Experience Inventory: A Scale to Measure Player Experiences at the Level of Functional and Psychosocial Consequences}},
  year = {2020},
  publisher = {Academic Press, Inc.},
  address = {USA},
  volume = {135},
  number = {C},
  issn = {1071-5819},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.102370},
  doi = {10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.102370},
  journal = {International Journal of Human-Computer Studies},
  numpages = {12},
}

The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale

Gustavo Fortes Tondello, Rina R. Wehbe, Lisa Diamond, 2 more authors, and Lennart E. Nacke

In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Austin, Texas, USA, 2016

Lasting Impact Award DOI Bib

CHI PLAY 2026 Lasting Impact Award.

@inproceedings{Tondello2016Gamification,
  author = {Tondello, Gustavo Fortes and Wehbe, Rina R. and Diamond, Lisa and Busch, Marc and Marczewski, Andrzej and Nacke, Lennart E.},
  title = {{The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale}},
  year = {2016},
  isbn = {9781450344562},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/2967934.2968082},
  doi = {10.1145/2967934.2968082},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play},
  pages = {229–243},
  numpages = {15},
  location = {Austin, Texas, USA},
  series = {CHI PLAY '16},
}

From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining "Gamification"

Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, and Lennart E. Nacke

In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, Tampere, Finland, 2011

DOI Bib

@inproceedings{Deterding2011From,
  author = {Deterding, Sebastian and Dixon, Dan and Khaled, Rilla and Nacke, Lennart E.},
  title = {{From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining "Gamification"}},
  year = {2011},
  isbn = {9781450308168},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040},
  doi = {10.1145/2181037.2181040},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments},
  pages = {9–15},
  numpages = {7},
  location = {Tampere, Finland},
  series = {MindTrek '11},
}