UX Glossary · B
Backlog
Also: Product backlog · Sprint backlog
The ordered list of everything a team might build next, with the most important work at the top.
A backlog is the ordered list of work a team could do: features, fixes, research, improvements. The defining property is that it is ordered, not merely collected. A list where everything is equally important is an inbox, not a backlog.
Scrum distinguishes the product backlog, everything under consideration, from the sprint backlog, the subset committed to the current sprint.
Where UX work lives
Design and research items compete with features for the same space, and they lose by default, because a feature has an obvious advocate and “fix the empty state” does not. Teams that manage this tend to do one of two things: reserve a fixed proportion of each sprint for usability fixes, or attach findings to the feature they affect so the cost is visible where the decision is made.
Grooming
Backlogs rot. Items written a year ago describe a product that has changed, and a backlog of 400 items is functionally the same as no backlog, because nobody can hold it in view. Regular refinement is less about adding detail than about deleting things the team is never going to do.
A UX audit usually produces backlog items directly, which is why ranking findings by severity and effort matters more than listing them.