--- title: Search Describes Solutions — But What About Problems? description: Search UIs typically focus on helping users find and evaluate solutions, but often neglect users who haven't yet fully understood their own problem. Drawing on... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/search-describes-solutions-but-what-about-problems--cxuiyrhqw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Search Describes Solutions — But What About Problems? | daily.dev og:description: Search UIs typically focus on helping users find and evaluate solutions, but often neglect users who haven't yet fully understood their own problem. Drawing on... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/search-describes-solutions-but-what-about-problems--cxuiyrhqw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cxuIYRHQW.png og:image:alt: Search Describes Solutions — But What About Problems? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Search Describes Solutions — But What About Problems? **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Search UIs typically focus on helping users find and evaluate solutions, but often neglect users who haven't yet fully understood their own problem. Drawing on Eugene Schwartz's buyer awareness stages (unaware → problem-aware → solution-aware → product-aware → most-aware), the post argues that e-commerce search should support the left side of this journey. Practical approaches include restructuring product taxonomies around problems rather than product properties (e.g., 'stays warm when wet' instead of 'material: merino'), using guided search widgets, embedding marketing content within results, and treating query vocabulary as a signal of where users are in their awareness journey. ML/AI-based labeling now makes problem-oriented facet assignment affordable at scale. Teams should also reconsider metrics like 'time to checkout,' which can be counterproductive when users need orientation time. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are the five stages of buyer awareness described by Eugene Schwartz in advertising theory? Eugene Schwartz's 1966 book on advertising describes buyers passing through five stages: unaware, problem-aware, solution-aware, product-aware, and most-aware, with the last referring to a final evaluation before purchase. Marketers use this framework to meet potential customers with the right information at the right stage, while search systems traditionally only address the later, more decided stages. _Teams debating how to design search or onboarding flows can find related UX frameworks curated on daily.dev._ ### What is a 'symptom query' in e-commerce search, and why do these searches often fail? A symptom query, a term used by the Baymard Institute, is a problem-related search like 'dry cough' or 'stained rug' rather than one naming a product or solution. These often produce disappointing results because product taxonomies are built around manufacturer vocabulary such as material, brand, size, and color, not the problem language shoppers actually use, though semantic search can partially bridge the gap. _Developers building semantic or e-commerce search follow query-matching challenges like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Search and Discovery Optimization: A Practical Playbook for Marketplaces](https://daily.dev/posts/search-and-discovery-optimization-a-practical-playbook-for-marketplaces-gnrhvodmp) · Netguru · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Site-Search Paradox: Why The Big Box Always Wins — Smashing Magazine](https://daily.dev/posts/the-site-search-paradox-why-the-big-box-always-wins-smashing-magazine-uidlnian0) · Smashing Magazine · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Solution-First UX Design: Using AI to Solve Problems](https://daily.dev/posts/solution-first-ux-design-using-ai-to-solve-problems-dhu2cgn6a) · Atomic Spin · 8 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your next pipeline miss may start in AI Search](https://daily.dev/posts/your-next-pipeline-miss-may-start-in-ai-search-kq9fgvy0p) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ux](https://daily.dev/tags/ux), [#ecommerce](https://daily.dev/tags/ecommerce) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/search-describes-solutions-but-what-about-problems--cxuiyrhqw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Search Describes Solutions — But What About Problems?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/search-describes-solutions-but-what-about-problems--cxuiyrhqw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/search-describes-solutions-but-what-about-problems--cxuiyrhqw"},"datePublished":"2026-07-23T19:31:16.974Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:50:07.207Z","description":"Search UIs typically focus on helping users find and evaluate solutions, but often neglect users who haven't yet fully understood their own problem. 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