Why did the Status dropdown move in Jira? Bad UX

[Janelle Schultz]

UPDATE: Did we win the argument? At of today (Oct 13), the status dropdown is back where it was previously. My users are so happy - and so am I. Thank you if you helped convince Atlassian it was a bad change.

We noticed this morning that the the Status dropdown moved from the upper right part of static menu to the top of each ticket. We have tickets that have lengthy descriptions and each time we add a comment and change a ticket status, now we're forced to scroll up through the description to get to the Status dropdown.

It's a really bad user experience.

[Marc Beeson]

Voicing my complaint with this UX change too. Like others, I find I am scrolling a lot more now. It was great where it was previously as it was part of a workflow. Now I have to not only have scroll up and down, I also have to move my mouse horizontally more.

[Royce Smallbone]

Sorry but this is just a bad UI decision. What should be done is to have this configurable to fulfill either user requirement. I can't work our why anyone would want it where it is now, but I'm not everyone, for our users as as soon as you scroll to look at comments etc. you then have to scroll back up to change the status!

[Royce Smallbone]

Had my reminder email yesterday, great timing :D "We're sending you a reminder that Atlassian is updating pricing to reflect the latest innovations now available across our apps and Cloud Platform. Over the past year, we have delivered powerful new capabilities to help teams boost productivity and operate with greater scale, performance and reliability."

Can we get the old pricing if we don't take these "powerful new capabilities" and "latest innovations" such as the one described in this post. Asking for a friend 

[ccenvcvb]

I agree give us the old pricing, without all the AI crap that is being added

[Admin Hustak]

Ok.  This change needs to be reverted.  Do you people actually use your product?  Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea?  I am FURIOUS - this has totally disrupted my team and workflow.   It is insane this got out to production.   

[Caitlin Doyle]

100% Agree. I've never received so many panicked, then angry emails as an admin. This is terrible. 

[Matt M_]

Terrible change. Makes no sense.
Claiming it was tricky to find is an absurd lie.

[EA]

Seriously, why was this change made? It’s terrible. I can’t use it on the left side. It was in the perfect spot on the right (and as you can see from previous comments everyone liked it there). Was this not reviewed by your team before going live? It’s unbelievable. Why put your customers through such frustrating updates? Please get feedback from users before rolling out UI changes that make the experience worse.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Hi @Janelle Schultz,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

The change was announced in this article.

[Stéphane St-Hilaire]

Yes, moving this status to the top where it is no longer accessible the moment you have scrolled down to add/edit a comment was pure genius.

Good thing you didn't survey anyone before doing it too.

Pretending that the old location used for years was "hard to find" is also pure trolling gold.

Well played!

[Chris Coppin]

I hate this change so much. Now, we not only can't tell the title/subject of the current ticket, but also what the current status is or action the current status, without scrolling to the top.

Who can tell me what this ticket is about and it's current status? 

In zoom meetings, I'm already asking the screen sharing person to "scroll to the top" so that I can tell what the hell the current ticket is, now I'll be asking the same to see what the current status is. You should fire whoever your current "user testing" users are.

This is as bad and as annoying as all urls being changed to be the link description with no easy way to change it. 

[Chris Coppin]

You could at least make the ticket title and status sticky along with the breadcrumbs at the top of the page.

Seriously. this is such a simple thing to get right.

[Jini]

Hi @Chris Coppin 
I'm sure you've already seen this: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Why-did-the-Status-dropdown-move-in-Jira-Bad-UX/qaa-p/3120088#M1150534

It works fine for me :) 

Its called Tampermonkey. Runs a JavaScript code. Just install the web extension and run the js code.  I know its just a workaround but I know its very annoying as a fellow JIRA user :) 

And found many other usercripts as well: https://www.userscript.zone/search?source=header&q=https%3A%2F%2F*.atlassian.net%2Fbrowse%2F

[Caitlin Doyle]

There are a few reasons this workaround isn't going to be helpful to a lot of users- it has to be done for each user's browser, and I have a large number of business users who 1. have restrictions on what browser extensions can be added and 2. won't have access/know how to run scripts. We need Atlassian to fix this.

[Chris Coppin]

I agree. This wasn't intended as a "solution for everyone".

[Kyle Simpson]

I agree with this being terrible UX. Now I have to move my mouse all the way across the left side of the screen away from the other issue attributes I typically update at the same time all grouped together in the right sidebar. 

Why???????

[davidcooley]

This is really genuinely annoying. Every person on my team noticed it independently and hated it before we discussed it with one another.

Is it possible this was tested by people who had relatively small descriptions and minimal commenting on their tickets?? That's the ONLY way this could not be annoying. If you use a jira ticket to actually notate a bunch of data, go through QA intensively, etc, you're going to get super annoyed by this.

[Tomas Surna [X]]

Heres a Tapermonkey script to move the button back into it's correct place: https://gist.github.com/tsurna/0640a2e88f3e537de8c3a021be4b40b6

[Jini]

Wonderful :) 

[Chris Coppin]

Instead of doing this, could you make it so that the ticket title and the new location for the status button are sticky, like the breadcrumbs? 

[Chris Coppin]

I've taken  Tomas's gist as a base and made my own version that keeps the status in the center column, but moves it and the task title into the sticky container (where the breadcrumbs are). This caused some flow on issues, which I've also worked to correct.

Any issues, let me know and I'll fix em up. enjoy :) 

https://gist.github.com/atomicbomb/71fd69d3118587374b44e585fbc7d0e6

[Jini]

Hey Chris! Appreciate the effort you put into your version, it works really well.
That said, I personally prefer Tomas's approach a bit more. Mainly because the button's visibility and placement just feel more intuitive to me. :)
Anyway brilliant work!

[Joshua Sooter]

@Chris Coppin Thank you! Now I can see the dropdown and title at all times! I'm so glad I found your post.

[Janelle Schultz]

@Tomas Surna [X] thank you for providing this. For some reason, it is not letting me install. I'm getting "Limited runtime host permissions might break some Tampermonkey features like script update, GM_xmlhttpRequest and others!" Is there something I should be doing with settings?

[Jini]

Hi @Janelle Schultz , 
Maybe I could help, can you put like a screenshot of the error from where it comes from? thanks!

[Janelle Schultz]

@Jini thank you - I appreciate the offer. It looks like the status dropdown is back where is was without having to run a script so for now, we'll watch and see if it changes again and there is a need to make this work.

[Jini]

Hi @Janelle Schultz ,
Of course! Loved that good news on a Monday haha! :D

[Terry Doyle]

I also think this was a very poor UX change. It seems to be have done by someone who doesn't actually use Jira on a daily basis.

Please put it back!!

[ASC Martin Petráček _admin_]

every single customer asked me if I can move it back... I dont care if thos was or wasnt announced. it is disgusting do face changes like that without having chance to change it back. 

[Ashish Bijlwan]

It has Vertical Scroll for both Description/Comment and Status Section. 

So, updating Description or Comment has no impact on the right side navigation Pane as it has separate Vertical Scroll.

Thank you,
Ashish

[Janelle Schultz]

Yes, true but we didn't need to scroll at all with the fixed location at the top of the right column. (And we set up our view such that we don't need to scroll the right column very often).

[Liam H]

If this is the way it is now, at least extend the decision so we can pin it in the sidebar as well.

Now initially creating a ticket I now have an additional area to scan for instead of having them all in one convenient location.

[Mario GELES]

Hi @Janelle Schultz 

Indeed Atlassian decided to rollback this change. 

Here you can see the full statement of Dave Meyer : 

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-96247

[Janelle Schultz]

Thank you for the confirmation! That response is kind of amazing.

[Mario GELES]

You're welcome ^^
Indeed this answer is great 

[Janelle Schultz]

I updated my post but as of Oct 13, it seems as if it has been moved to its original location and I am very happy that Atlassian saw the error of their ways - lol.

[Robert DaSilva]

Hey @Janelle Schultz , welcome to the Atlassian Community!

This change was announced in July of this year, and has been detailed as part of this Community Article: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-articles/Easier-status-updates-for-work-items/ba-p/3068881

Atlassian has an open request in their feedback portal to provide organizations the option to move the Status field where the want, which I would recommend you voice your support for here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-27789

Cheers,

Robert

[Janelle Schultz]

Thank you - I disagree with the reasoning behind this change and I will voice my support for the customization. Given how long it takes for Atlassian to make changes based on community feedback, I'll just assume we are going to be doing an inordinate amount of scrolling.

[Admin Hustak]

I don't have time to monitor the development of JIRA.  I have work to do.   It is insane to make a huge change like this - the status is a key item. 

[Leslie Easter]

I also disagree with this change and have a number of very angry users today. I also voice my support for the customization - either that, or revert this change.  This is a major disruption in using Jira for all my users and will result in frustration and wasted time, as well as a bad reputation for Atlassian. Atlassian should listen more carefully to their customers who reported the issue during beta and early releases.   And the sooner the customization is put in place, the better. Thanks.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Janelle Schultz -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

This is one of the recent UX updates, and there are already customer suggestions to reverse the decision or to make the Status control position configurable.

Here is one of those suggestions, which you may watch / vote for to see progress:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-27789

Kind regards,
Bill

[Janelle Schultz]

Thank you!

[Don Arsenault]

A jarring and unexpected change!!! I just got comfortable with status on the right pane - it moved from the left to the right pane only a few years ago. Now it's moved back? Why o why do you do this to me Atlassian?!!

[Janelle Schultz]

It WAS jarring and I have had users not updating the status (which is part of our routing process). At least the right pane is static whereas the location now means far more scrolling just to advance a ticket.

[Don Arsenault]

I see how status is hard to find on a narrow display, like mobile. The stuff on right pane is moved below the stuff on the left pane.

But improving mobile shouldn't mean messing up the rest of us.