
The XY Problem - zajd
http://xyproblem.info/
======
nilkn
There's an inverse phenomenon in which the question asker has legitimately
found the appropriate solution to their problem, but people are combative and
unwilling to help because they insist on knowing the full context, erroneously
believing the situation to be an instance of the XY problem. This sometimes
leads to a huge digression because explaining the full context is not always
as simple as "I want the file extension". I've seen this fairly often on Stack
Overflow, where someone is unable to get an answer to their question and
instead only gets interrogated. In the worst case, this creates a prominent
link in Google results to the question with no answer.

~~~
robmclarty
Or at the Apple store! omg, the number of times I've walked in, gone directly
to a sales person to request that they kindly go to the back room and retrieve
a specific item for me so that I can give them money and been stalled,
interrogated, and counter advised on other products when really I already know
what I want and just want them to get it for me.

me: "Hi, I'd like to buy a White 13" Macbook with a 500gb HD and 8gb of RAM.
Could you please get one for me?"

sales person: "What are you using it for? Do you browse the internet? look at
photos? do a lot of word processing?"

me: confused "um, I do web development and use Photoshop sometimes..."

sales person: "Oh well you need a Macbook Pro then."

me: "no, I can't afford that and the regular Macbook is plenty powerful for
what I need. Can I just buy one please?"

sales person: "Photoshop won't run well on the regular Macbook. What you
really want it the Macbook Pro. You'll need at least 16gb of RAM and if you're
editing photos you'll want a bigger harddrive, not to mention the extra power
that comes from the Pro's CPU."

me: "um, I have money in my hand right here that I will give you in exchange
for a regular Macbook. Can you please go get one and take my money?"

~~~
cecilpl
The problem is that they don't know that you actually know what you want.

You present identically to the kind of person who is completely non-technical
and was mis-advised by a friend of theirs, and who will come back in a week
complaining about how Photoshop doesn't run well enough and their hard drive
is full.

Apple has decided that they want to ensure that you are happy with your
purchase, and part of that process involves the salesperson being convinced
that you are buying the right thing.

~~~
shostack
I'd think "I do web development" should be a sufficient signal that "this
person is not non-technical."

~~~
cbd1984
> I'd think "I do web development" should be a sufficient signal that "this
> person is not non-technical."

Not to a systems software developer, sonny.

/s

(Besides, "I do web development" could easily mean "I know what Dreamweaver
is". (It's that song by Gary Wright which helped inspire Freddy Kreuger,
right?))

~~~
wolfgke
> (Besides, "I do web development" could easily mean "I know what Dreamweaver
> is".

People who fall into the (negative) category "I know what Dreamweaver is"
never describe themselves as web developers, but rather as web designers (and
the serious web designers, say, as UX designer).

------
stephengillie
This has been described in marketing as the "drill-hole" problem. If you work
at a hardware store, and a customer comes in looking for a drill bit, they
aren't actually trying to buy a drill bit. They're trying to buy a hole in
their wall.

Why would they want a hole in their wall? To put a screw or nail into it. Why
would they do want a nail or screw in their wall? To hang a picture.

And now you can start with all kinds of picture-hanging solutions, some of
which don't require the screw or even the hole in the wall.

Edit: And this only used 3 of the 5 Whys.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

~~~
krapp
Let me guess... those picture-hanging solutions the customer really wants just
happen to cost more than the drill bit they specifically asked about?

~~~
stephengillie
Well yes, you could run your business that way. And maybe your customer lives
in a building with asbestos or old lathe walls or another reason not to drill
holes in the wall.

Or maybe the customer just doesn't want to risk putting a nail in the wall
because last time it went right into a water pipe and they had to replace
their entire entryway - 2 walls, the floor, and rehang the front door.

------
JoshTriplett
On the one hand, this is a real problem. On the other hand, the source linked
as "source 2" at the bottom demonstrates just how awful, condescending, and
elitist geeks can be when lording knowledge over others. It's not hard to be
friendly, and those IRC logs are nothing to be proud of.

~~~
blakeyrat
The "helpers" in both examples are awful. Ugh.

Also representative of all of my attempts to get support via IRC.

~~~
JoshTriplett
It varies heavily by channel. It's impressive what you can produce if you
decide ahead of time that your community won't be that way. For instance, the
Rust community is exceptional; I would never expect to see anything like this
there.

------
JoshTriplett
The example I've always used is "How do I remove the blade guard from a
chainsaw?" In response to which you should very carefully find out what
they're really trying to do. Unless you want their next question to be "what
kind of knot makes the best tourniquet?", or perhaps "what's the fastest way
to dissolve human bones?"

------
CuriousSkeptic
For a different take on this problem see NVC:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication)

Also note the crucial symmetry, besides trying to ask X, it is also important
to hear X even if Y is spoken.

------
davidgerard
What would you call geeksplaining answers, the YX Problem? ("I want to do X."
"No no no, you want Y." [If I wanted Y, I'd have said 'I want to do Y.'])

~~~
anotherangrydev
This is stackoverflow.

"I want to draw a square in an HTML Canvas"

"Why?" "Why not use python?" "Circles are better than squares, just saying"
"It is not possible to draw a square usign that language, it was not designed
to do that" "It depends on what type of screen you're using" "Are you sure you
want to draw a square in the screen?" "How do you define a square?" \--> "10
Downvotes, closed as not constructive"

And later, but only if you're lucky:

"c.getContext("2d").rect(20,20,150,100).stroke();"

~~~
bradjohnson
This is especially bad when you are posting in a Q and A forum like Stack
Overflow and I see it happen constantly to myself and others. A year down the
line if I search how to solve X problem I may not even want the same end
result as the OP of the SO post and then nobody has even solved the original
problem, just suggested alternatives that are useless for me. If I make a
post, someone will inevitably close it as a duplicate of that question. Very
frustrating.

------
Amorymeltzer
The actual discussion on Meta.SE
([http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/66377/229060](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/66377/229060))
is pretty informative, and with some good comments.

------
minikites
Anyone who has worked a computer help desk for more than a week knows this all
too well.

~~~
weinzierl
Anyone who has used an computer help desk knows the reverse problem all to
well:

    
    
       A: "My sharepoint workflow is broken again, 
           Can you put me through to the sharepoint guys,
           they helped me yesterday with the same problem."
       B: "Have you tried turning your computer off and on   
           again?"
       A: "No, but this is problem with sharepoint". 
       B: "Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again!" 
       A: "Ok, ok, hang on."
    
        15 Minutes later (big corporate machines can be slow)
    
       A: "Didn't help"
       B: "Ok, we'll reinstall your machine. I'll send you a 
           technician"
       A: "NO, no, no, nevermind"
       A (lying voice): "It suddenly seems to be working again"

~~~
kamaal
I used to work in a tech support shop for desktop, laptops and other devices a
few years back.

I had to once explain a furious customer, why their newly purchased desktop
doesn't have internet(They had no internet connection). Basically I had to
talk to them about how internet works.

------
benagain
Even the most seasoned expert could spend a little time getting to know the
situation before attempting to jump to the answer. If the user's question is
not a precise statment of the issue that needs attention, don't worry, this is
normal.

In my opinion, it is up to the community to either tease out the real question
and prompt the user to make some edits, or flag/downvote and give some useful
criticism.

------
gue5t
This is my favorite occurrence of the phenomenon: [http://www.tech-
archive.net/Archive/Development/microsoft.pu...](http://www.tech-
archive.net/Archive/Development/microsoft.public.win32.programmer.kernel/2007-10/msg00012.html)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Note the lack of a response actually helping the person. That's an occurrence
of needless snark, not a positive demonstration of how to help someone asking
for help.

Here's a better response: "What kind of information are you looking to obtain?
Much of that information is already read by the OS and provided via various
APIs."

------
thyrsus
I'm so happy this wasn't about chromosomes.

At least, I hope it isn't. :-)

...I'll see myself out.

------
callesgg
Why is it called the xy problem? it is not realy a problem...

It is a description of a common interaction betwean two persons.

~~~
spacehome
That's a great question. If this is such a common problem, one might reason
that people may want to refer to this category of problems occasionally. How
would you describe this category of common problems to a third party? Would it
take more syllables than "XY Problem"? If so, you've discovered why it can be
useful to invent common vocabulary.

------
Kenji
I thought this was going to be another post about bro culture in tech and how
bad it is. I am pleasantly surprised that I was wrong.

