Elisa Mekler
Post Doctoral Fellow

Elisa Mekler was a post-doctoral fellow at the HCI Games Group. She holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Basel with special emphasis on Human-Computer Interaction. Her research focuses on the characteristics of enjoyable and meaningful user experiences with games, gamification, and interactive technology in general. She is particularly interested in why people sometimes value (mixed and negative) emotional experiences with technology, as well as the motivational mechanisms underlying gamification. Her publications have won best paper (top 1%) and best paper honourable mention awards (top 5%) at the premier human-computer interaction conferences CHI and CHI PLAY.
Projects
Publications
Defining Gameful Experience as a Psychological State Caused by Gameplay: Replacing the Term ‘Gamefulness’ with Three Distinct Constructs

Richard Landers, Gustavo Fortes Tondello, Dennis Kappen, Andrew Collmus, Elisa Mekler, and Lennart Nacke. 2019. Defining Gameful Experience as a Psychological State Caused by Gameplay: Replacing the Term ‘Gamefulness’ with Three Distinct Constructs. .
ExerCube vs. Personal Trainer: Evaluating a Holistic, Immersive, and Adaptive Fitness Game Setup.

Anna-Lisa Martin-Niedecken, Katja Rogers, Laia Turmo Vidal, Elisa Mekler, and Elena Márquez Segura. 2019. ExerCube vs. Personal Trainer: Evaluating a Holistic, Immersive, and Adaptive Fitness Game Setup.. .
Testing Incremental Difficulty Design in Platformer Games

Rina Wehbe, Elisa Mekler, Mike Schäkermann, Edward Lank, and Lennart Nacke. 2017. Testing Incremental Difficulty Design in Platformer Games. .
Design and preliminary validation of the player experience inventory

Vero Vanden Abeele, Lennart Nacke, Elisa Mekler, and Daniel Johnson. 2016. Design and preliminary validation of the player experience inventory. .
Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design

Gustavo Fortes Tondello, Dennis Kappen, Elisa Mekler, Marim Ganaba, and Lennart Nacke. 2016. Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design. .