No, it's not a dark pattern. You're not being tricked or forced into doing something that prevents your intended action.

Dark Patterns are about being tricked into doing something you otherwise don't want to do. Such as not unticking a checkbox that's hidden away and inadvertently signing up for a newsletter, or interrupting your current action to present an alternative, non-desired action (such as popping up a video you have to watch to continue reading the article). At no point on Stack Exchange are you prevented from continuing your task, nor are you forced into navigating somewhere by accident without knowing where you're going to end up.

The 'hot questions' section is just more content across the network and presented as a way of increasing your awareness of those other content areas. No different from Amazon doing a 'often purchased together' suggestion of product, or a news page suggesting other articles.

You could potentially make the argument that they count as clutter or a distraction, but that's not a dark pattern.

Basically, Hot Network Questions are no more a dark-pattern than banner adverts.

I would say yes. If the only intention of the HNQ area was to advertise other StackExchange sites, they could have used neutral links, such as "Learning Japanese? Visit this site" "Love math? Visit this other site".

However, by displaying questions designed to pique one's curiosity (answers hidden behind a click, like a cliffhanger), the user is guided towards a stream of pointless dopamine shots. For every answer they read, they are presented with five new questions.

When I google a question, I arrive at StackExchange sites with a very specific purpose. The makers of this site know this and try to redirect me. If the intentionally addictive UX of social media and mobile games (arguably) counts as a dark pattern, then why not this?

Exploiting the curiosity of users to serve more ads is relatively harmless, but I'm not the first person to consider this kind of engagement hacking a dark pattern. It also reminds me of the concept of "nerd sniping", coined by xkcd.

Edit: To be clear, I wouldn't consider the HNQ area on the front page a dark pattern. The purpose of the front page is to let users explore the site/network. I only object to placement and design of the HNQ block next to actual answers, especially on sites focused on professional knowledge, like StackOverflow.

One more analogy: Placing candy at supermarket checkouts, where customers will get bored, was/is very effective. Nobody wants to stop supermarkets from selling sweets altogether, but the intentional placement makes it a dark pattern in context.

(Ironically, I was demonstrating how to hide the HNQ after a friend brought up the issue of being distracted by it. Then I saw this very question in the HNQ.)

No, it's not a dark pattern at all. Neither by definition, nor by interaction. As JonW clearly said, no one is cheating on you to do something that will affect your intention.

However...

At UX, we work with data to create and improve user engagement. To do this, we use placements, colors, content hierarchies and other "tricks" if you want to call them that. These tricks are based on cognitive and behavioral psychology and a deep understanding of the behaviors of users.

So it's easy to see why you think you're being cheated: because they're using tricks to keep you engaged. And it seems to work, but at the same time you can say that you are being manipulated by the site (and yes, you are, like everyone else, that's the idea)

But saying all of the above, this is not a dark pattern, because you are not being forced and there is nothing hidden. You are presented with a set of options with which you can choose to participate. Or not.

It's like presenting a table full of tasty food, and they tell you that you're free to eat whatever you want. It is up to you whether to do it or not, there is no dark pattern at all, but it is a little worrisome that you (and others) find this as a dark pattern, because that implies one of the most important factors in measuring the effectiveness of a site: trust.

Finally, going to the HNQ

They are doing this for you to get involved with other sites on the network. This way, visitors are "cloned", and SE can show engagement values that are real and important to advertisers and investors. The same unique user becomes a different user when interacting with different sub-sites, and the retargeting can be made depending on the different sub-sites and interests for that unique user. We're talking traction and engagement here, and that defines the value of Stack Exchange as a business

In my opinion no. However, I do feel that the design is flawed due to lacking an option to quickly toggle its visibility.

As mentioned by @JonW, by my understanding of the definition merely distracting you doesn't make something a Dark Pattern. If you examine the provided examples, you will notice that each one actively attempts to decieve you.

In contrast, while the HNQ bar succeds in distracting many users including myself, it isn't in any way deceptive. If you choose to click on it, there's no mystery about where it will take you. Furthermore, it also has merits.

• It serves the interests of the StackExchange community by increasing engagement.


• It serves the interests of the StackExchange company by advertising other network sites to you and presumably increasing time spent interacting with the network as a whole.

If anything, I would classify the current form of the HNQ bar as clickbait. And similar to other clickbait advertisements, I typically choose to hide it by employing filtering rules similar to those mentioned in one of the answers to the previously linked question.

stackoverflow.com###hot-network-questions

stackexchange.com###hot-network-questions

As far as UX goes though, I'll note that in my view if the user feels compelled to filter first party content then the design has serious flaws. It's just that in this case, it doesn't happen to be flawed in the specific way you were asking about.

As someone who has been drawn into spending more time than anticipated in the wormhole of the various stack exchange sites, I would argue that it does seem to be a way to get users drawn further into the site, but probably not explicitly a dark pattern. A dark pattern generally seems to describe an effort to take things other than the user's time, more like a website that tricks you into signing up for emails or paid subscriptions against your will. It is something of a gray area, perhaps.

This is admittedly not a direct answer to the OP's question, but it would be nice to be able to "turn off" the Hot Network Questions, an option which the site does not provide. A simple way to eliminate them is using a greasemonkey/tampermonkey script.

I have one that consists of just the following:

// ==UserScript==

// @name        hide-stackexchange-hot

// @include     *.stackexchange.com/*

// @include     https://stackoverflow.com/*

// @description Hides the hot network questions on Stack Exchange sites

// @require     http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.min.js

// @grant       GM_addStyle

// ==/UserScript==



$('#hot-network-questions').remove();

It is effectively just a single useful line of code, which finds div tags with an ID of "hot-network-questions" and removes them from the page. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension, and Tampermonkey is the chrome equivalent; both allow the source code of pages to be edited automatically by some prescribed code.

PS: I would have submitted this as a comment, but lack seniority to do so and would not be able to format my reply.