Try out the new navigation in Jira

[#1]

Hi everyone,

The Jira Navigation team has been relentless in its efforts to make finding and resuming your work effortless. Following several weeks of testing, we're excited to expand this experiment to a wider audience and gather more insights from users like you.

If you’re keen on helping us improve this experience, we’d love for you to join us in an experiment so that we can understand the key aspects of your workflow and how you navigate through Jira.

What’s the new navigation?

We’re revamping Jira with a modern and easy-to-use navigation system that’s designed for consistency, flexibility, and efficiency.

The key changes in the new navigation are:

• Simplified top navigation: We've reimagined the top navigation, decluttering it to keep the focus on essential tasks like search and create. All other product and navigation items have been relocated to the new left sidebar.

• Customizable and collapsible sidebar: Customize and collapse sections within the left sidebar to focus on what matters most to you. Personalize your navigation further by showing or hiding the menu items on the sidebar.

• Unified look and feel: The new navigation is designed for a cohesive experience across all Jira products, like Jira Software, Jira Work Management, and Jira Service Management, improving co-usage between them.

• Effortless project switching: Get to your work faster with fewer clicks, even when working across multiple projects.

See the clear visual changes here.

Why are we doing this?

Navigation (top and side navigation) is central to how users find and move their work forward. While our product portfolio has expanded and evolved over time, the navigation in Jira has become inconsistent, rigid, and difficult to manage.

• The current navigation is cluttered and lacks customization: The interface is overcrowded with underused features, making navigation difficult and inflexible. Moreover, users want the ability to customize what they see in Jira.

• Inconsistent side navigation across Jira products: Users navigating through multiple products, like Jira Software, Jira Work Management, and Jira Service Management, find it confusing and spend more time adjusting to the context switch.

What’s involved?

We’ve developed a Chrome extension to enable the new navigation in Jira. We’d love for you to try the new navigation in your own instances and share your insights with us.

Your insights and participation will greatly contribute to improving the Jira experience for all users. So we urge you to talk to your Jira admins about enabling a Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.

Note: The extension is available to use in Chrome browsers only, and we don’t support IE, Safari, or other browsers.

To use the new navigation:

1. Open the Chrome extension and select Add to Chrome.

2. Select Add extension and pin it to your Chrome browser so you can easily toggle it on/off.

3. After you’ve turned on the extension, open your Jira instance. You should see the navigation on the top and side are different. Also, your frequently used menu items may have moved.

4. If you already have Jira open in your browser window, refresh the page and the new navigation should work for you.

What to expect?

We want you to use Jira the way you would normally, while we intend to understand your usage and preferences so we can refine the navigation experience. Given this is an experiment, we're rolling out a limited set of features, and there may be bugs or unintended behavior. If something isn’t working out for you, you can revert to the old experience by toggling off the extension. You can toggle it back on after you’ve completed the task. We’d like to know why you went back to the old experience.

Read more on identified issues and bugs.

We’d love to hear about your experience using the new navigation in Jira. Share with us:

• Any tasks you found challenging to complete using the new navigation

• How you've personalized your sidebar to suit your work

• What’s working well for you

• What’s not working well for you

• Any other comments or suggestions, no matter how minor

You can give us feedback on the new navigation after you’ve enabled the Chrome extension by selecting Give feedback from the left sidebar.

If you’ve explored the features and functionalities of the new navigation, please take a few minutes to participate in our brief survey. Your feedback will help us refine the new navigation to better meet your preferences.

Additionally, if you're open to sharing more about your experience through an interview, please sign up here.

Furthermore, you can join our Community group where you can ask questions, share feedback, raise concerns, and connect with the team working on the Jira Navigation.

Cheers,
The Jira Navigation team

[Yatish Madhav]

Thanks for this @Varsha Patel - i think that, in this or a follow up post about the navigation update, it will be really helpful if you provide a like for like comparison of the old vs new nav.

I.e screenshots and text descriptions of where you would find each item in the navigations as this would be a bit of a change control for our users. Eg. the below X and the sub items can be now found on location Y

Apart from this - I think the recorded one on one call I had with Atlassian would have all my thoughts :)

Thank you again

[Varsha Patel]

@Yatish Madhav Thank you for your insights! We'll be doing a comparison post for the old vs new navigation (via Chrome extension) on the Navigation refresh group. Be sure to watch that space for more info and comment what you'd like to see more of.  

[Ismail Sanni]

Hi @Varsha Patel 

Thanks for this upload, I noticed I couldn't find the project settings JSM projects, can you please walk me through on how to find it?

Thanks

[Varsha Patel]

@Ismail Sanni Firstly, thank you for giving it a go. 

Given this is an experiment, we’ve rolled out a limited set of features. We’ve not enabled Project settings for this experiment, and that's why you're not able to find it for JSM projects. 

• To use Project settings, you can turn off the extension to use it.

Note: You can turn the extension on/off as per your needs and preferences.

As this is a known issue and is frequently asked, we’ve documented this and other known issues, bugs, and unexpected behavior here.

Please raise any other concerns you have with the experiment so we can refine the new navigation to better suit you and your teams. 

[Ayelet Ben-Tzur]

Only a bit related to this: under Filters there's "View all Filters", "View all Issues". the "View all issues" should be named "Search for Issues". This is the only link you click to quickly start an advanced search, therefore "Search for Issues" makes much more sense. Every time I want to us the advanced search it takes me few sec to recall what is the link for that, and I've been an admin for 10 years now. Naming it "View all Issues" is not intuitive at all.

[Ismail Sanni]

I concur with you @Ayelet Ben-Tzur 

Thanks @Varsha Patel 

[YY哥]

Hi @Varsha Patel 

Thanks for this new update.

I have 2 feedbacks:

1.sidebar: apps's icon and names show incorrectly

2.how to customize and show the app entry from the top menu?

Thanks,

YY哥

[Varsha Patel]

@YY哥 Thank you for your feedback. 

1. The app might be showing incorrectly because there may be a mix between Connect and Forge apps, and that's messing with the response data. We'll take a look at this for the apps you've highlighted and get back to you. I can't see the app right after Xray. Can you help with the name, please?
   
   
2. Given that this is an experiment, we don't fully support apps in projects for the Chrome extension. So you won't be able to customize and show the app entry from the top menu.  

[Varsha Patel]

@Ayelet Ben-Tzur Thank you for pointing that out. 

Another pathway to go to Advanced search would be to go to Search and select View all issues at the bottom of the menu. 

The reason to call it View all issues is only to ensure there's consistency across all paths leading to Advanced search in the product. 

Read more here.

[Tapiwa Samkange]

Thanks for including the images @Yatish Madhav . I agree with the idea of providing comparison images. I think having images of the new navigation features in the body of the post would be helpful.

[Haddon Fisher]

I am absolutely loving the attention paid to user testing here - early access AND a chrome plugin!? NICE.

As far as the change itself goes...uh...not a fan.

[Erki Tammik]

Few things I noticed:

• 'Plans' section doesn't load for me
• navigation menu loads slowly

Would be nice:

• fast access to JQL search, at least for admins
• ability to highlight or iconize frequently used favorites, there will be lot of text in the menu, it's still difficult to find what I need, as user I will still prefer browser bookmarks
• 'open/collapse all' option
• option to bring shortcuts directly into the menu, providing one-click access without having to dig deeper
• more pop-out options like those available for 'Recent' and 'Starred' items, reducing the number of clicks needed to access what I need
• option to create a custom menu where I can combine items like project timelines, dashboards, and assets, currently starring is the only option
• ability to add external links, such as Team Confluence Space an other links
• it would be awesome to have an option to display some items in a pop-up window, eg dashboard, Confluence page, etc.

[Rimantas Andrulevičius]

@Varsha Patel how to I access the project administration section?

- ok I've found the answer in the known bugs page.

But what is not mentioned that when you access the "project pages" the project navigation in the top does not load (while selecting other tabs like "Releases" does load the top navigation):

[Wolff]

When needing a Chrome Extension im off....
Safari, is most efficient and battery life takes much longer! Please think about Mac users. 

Why not integrate this directly? 
The extension looks like spam to me JNR-Chrome plugin. 

[Rimantas Andrulevičius]

Overall I like it.

Is there a prediction of when this new navigation will be publicly available in Jira?

[kasper]

Huge improvement compared with the legacy top menu.

Now i only miss Confluence spaces in the same left menu and everything would be so much simpler.

Also, an ability to show the various projects divided by the type (Software, Business, Service) in the "Projects" sub-menu, would also help.

[kasper]

Normally clicking through your starred business projects in the business left side menu, remembers the view/sub page you where at the last time you opened the project.

Using the "left sidebar plugin", and clicking through starred business projects, it do not remember the last used view, it always goes to the board, making it very annoying compared to the legacy.

[Raphael Lopes]

Very cool, I'm already trying it out.
The APPS view isn't 100% yet, is it?

[Kamil Sierakowski]

The browser extension works on all chromium browsers, I have tested on Microsoft Edge

[Artur França Cerveira]

On the first sight already loving the new sight!

[Varsha Patel]

We've put out a post to show clear visual changes of the current navigation and the new navigation via the Chrome extension here. Check it out and let us know what you'd like covered, your use cases, and other insights. 

[arajah]

Hi All , 
Wanted to share a quick update on the timelines for the new navigation.
We’re currently exploring the feasibility of the new navigation, and the Chrome extension helped us understand user behaviour and preferences. Based on the feedback and insights we’ve got from this experiment, we’re launching an Early Access Program (EAP) in October 2024 . You could opt-in and test the updated experience in your instance. 

We’ll share more details on the timelines when we’re ready and closer to rollout.

Thanks!