The debate is over! Jeopardy!, the ultimate arbiter of truth, has defined UX.
On the December 12th, 2025 episode, the Double Jeopardy round had a category called “Modern 2-letter initials”. The $2000 answer was:
Abbreviated UX, it’s the term for the involvement people have when interacting with a product or service
Comparing with other, more complicated and professional definitions:
| Source | Jeopardy! Who: People | Jeopardy! What: Involvement | Jeopardy! How: Interacting with | Jeopardy! With: Product or Service |
| Wikipedia: How a user interacts with and experiences a product, system, or service | User | Experiences | Interacts with | Product, system, or service |
| NN/G: Encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products | End-user | All aspects | Interaction with | The company, its services, and its products |
| ISO 9241: User’s perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a system, product or service | User | Perceptions and responses | Use and/or anticipated use of | System, product or service |
| IBM: The overall experience a customer or user has when interacting with a product, system or service | Customer or user | Overall experience | Interacting with | Product, system or service |
| UXnet: The quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design | Person | Quality of experience | Interacting with | Specific design |
I’d say the Jeopardy! staff did a good job:
- Did not re-use “user” (instead “people”) or “experience” (instead “involvement”) in the definition
- Kept “interacting with” which seems core to me
- Just “product or service” for what people interact with (not a fan of the word “company” in the NN/G definition, “system” adds value IMHO but I can live without it)
And no “UI slash” to be found. No specific technology (“websites”, “apps”) mentioned.
So, as a community, let’s start using the Jeopardy! definition of UX. We have more important things to discuss to make the world a better place.
The REAL confusion arises with the phrase “User Experience” when our community uses it as a verb (“do UX”) and as an adjective (“UX process”, “UX team”, “UX conference” and for roles like “UX researcher”, “UX designer”, and “UX writer”) without clarifying the context. Lots of other spins also add to the confusion around the term UX.
When talking about UX as a noun, I am going with: The involvement people have when interacting with a product or service.
