Sidebar navigation improvement idea

[#1]

I've been using Jira for several years, including before the move from the top navigation to the current sidebar.

While I like the flexibility of the sidebar, I've noticed that it becomes difficult to navigate once multiple sections are expanded. I also see the same confusion from our customers.

I think the main issue is the lack of visual hierarchy. When sections like Spaces, Dashboards, or Filters are expanded, the main navigation items blend together with their contents, making it harder to quickly scan the sidebar.

My suggestion

Introduce a three-level color hierarchy:

• 🔵 Highlight – the currently selected item (existing behavior).
• ⚫ Master highlight – a subtle darker gray background for top-level navigation items (Filters, Dashboards, Spaces, Apps, etc.).
• ⚪ Default – regular items remain unchanged.

This small visual change would make it much easier to distinguish where each section starts and ends, especially in long, expanded sidebars.

I've attached a quick mockup to illustrate the idea.

Would love to hear what others think!

here is example idea (current and idea)

Regards everyone,

Benjamin

[Murthy A M]

Good suggestion

[Becker_ Rene]

I like your approach.

More suggestions:

1) Cosistency:

Here you can see, how the "open search / go further / dive deeper" (I couldn't find a more fitting word) is placed. First it is at the top, second on the bottom. That's bad for muscle memory.

Filters

-> Search for work items (= open search, dive deeper)

-> Predefined Filters

-> View all filters (= dive deeper, go further)

Spaces

-> Predefined Links (Starred, Recent)

-> More Spaces (= open search, go further)

2) Decluttering

If it was for me, I'd remove "recent" from Spaces and Filters and put all in the Menu "Recent".

Recent opens an inline popup -> maybe give it some filters for spaces, items and filters.

Keeping "recent" in Spaces and Filters just makes the list longer.

You could also collapse recents by default, but in my opinion it's not intuitive to keep it there, while there is a whole menu dedicated to it.

--

Default Filters -> collapse by default and give it a heading like "Starred" and "Recent". The way it is now, it just vanishes between "Recent" and "View all filters"

3) Optical help

All the icons in filters basically look the same and are very prominent. It's hard to concentrade on the actual items.

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Edit: Corrected some typos

[Dave Mathijs]

The "new" sidebar navigation is one of the worst UX/UI decisions ever by Atlassian. Even as a seasoned user/admin I cannot get used to it.

There are way too many options, bad hierarchy visibility (thanks @Benjamin Črnjak for creating this suggestion).

Even the personal Customize sidebar option does not meet the requirements. I just want to hide/remove For you and Recent, also within Spaces, Filters, and Dashboards.

Besides that, there is still no Main navigation to Boards.

[zoltanersek _outpostlabs_dev_]

Nice idea. I think improving the visual hierarchy would go a long way. I'd also love an option to auto-collapse other expanded sections, once you have Spaces, Filters, and Dashboards all open, the sidebar gets surprisingly hard to scan.

[Anne Saunders]

100% agree! I was interviewed for the UI research for this change and I recommended almost the same thing!