Feedback about degraded user experience and usability of Jira after 2025 Changes

[Shanmuga Narayanan Pitchaipillai]

With the forced terminology changes of Jira Software Projects to Spaces - Causing enormous confusion among large corporate users who look for stability and standardization in their management tools , how do we get our feedback heard to the Atlassian product designers and User Experience designers ? 

The forced structural change is causing considerable amount of confusion and causing distrust for Atlassian brand itself. 

a possible way to address , from what i could think off without knowing the details of designers have brought about these changes  , 

the confusion that is getting created between what is a Jira Software Space vs what is a Confluence Space vs what is a Jira Projects which is being used for goals i believe is overwhelming for many of the non technical users - i have tried to champion the use of Jira within my company , but with this dizzying pace of user experience changes and terminology changes is causing distrust of the platform itself for many of my endusers.

If jira wanted to create a grouping of different projects and products like confluence a team or workspace user may want to align together they could have simply created a additional layer of "Spaces" at parent level grouping for Jira Software projects and Confluence spaces and any other atlassian products in use at that "Spaces" - Workspace level , which would have atleast made sense for me to convey to the end users how to read this.

The abrupt forced change of Jira Software "Projects" - "Spaces" is so very confusing and has been causing enormous distrust among users creating pain for anyone who is looking to promote Jira usage in large corporations 

a summarized user community feedback which i have captured in another post related to this as follows

• Drastic UI/UX Changes: The new navigation interface (rolling out May 2025) has been heavily criticized for being chaotic, reducing efficiency, and forcing more clicks to perform daily tasks. Users have reported that key functions are buried, and the new sidebar is cramped, prompting complaints that it is a "colossal failure on every level" for experienced users.
• Forced Migration and "Space" Terminology: Atlassian is forcing users onto the Cloud, and in late 2025, began rebranding "Jira Projects" to "Jira Spaces," a structural change that has created confusion and resistance among teams accustomed to traditional project terminology.
• Reduced Admin Control and Visibility: Changes in July 2025 removed the "trusted user role" and altered how administrators manage permissions, creating hurdles for complex, heavily tailored instances. 

The Rethink among customers about the usage of the product itself - Large corporations and company users are most affected:
Overall with Less efficient user interface has driven users to look for alternatives for the first time in years, particularly after reports that Atlassian ignored feedback regarding the UI redesign. While some argue the new UI is better for new users, the consensus among power users and admins is that it is a regression in functionality  - Can this be rectified by Atlassian for better Enterprise grade users ? 

[高下 智彦_Tomohiko Takashita_ lixiluser]

100% agreed. The Atlassian navigation team needs to swallow their pride, admit this update is a massive blunder, roll back to the old, actually usable UI, and disband entirely.

[Martin Flury]

where is the fire like icon for this statement!!

1000% agreed. 

[Anne Saunders]

🔥

[Joelyn Weeks]

Totally agree.  The design team has not heard us before and do not offer improvements for the negative feedback.  It seems to the design team does not understand the complexities that we use with project management.....they seem to have a one dimensional view for "to do" lists.

It would be nice for them to hold a user (virtual) meeting and let us show how we use it and why we need certain features they have removed or altered in a less than helpful way.

[Anne Saunders]

It took years for similarly pointless/useless/bloated-salary-justification changes to be reversed the last time they did this.

We have to:

1. Keep hope alive.
   
   
2. Like, comment, and share the community posts that question and offer alternatives to the changes that adversely affect your team's workflows and productivity.
   
   
3. Vote for and comment on like-minded requests in JAC  https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-97573

I don't have a lot of hope personally, but our leadership team has decided to stay the course with Atlassian, so I'm trying to make the most of an unfortunate situation.

[Mitchell Cardwell]

Keep hope alive? I mean...uh...it's software. The new UI isn't going away, and long-time Atlassian users know this happens every 4-5 years. Time to move on.

[Mark B Wager]

AGREED!  I'm honestly confused and bewildered. I have a hard time believing that CUSTOMERS wanted these changes.

The recent changes have all felt FORCED and more about Atlassian roadmaps/priorities than about Customer needs/wants. (This exposes what I suspect is a HUGE gap between Customers and Atlassian usage, needs, wants, and priorities.)

Thank you for opening a door here to allow us (customers) to vent provide feedback. Although, in my experience it will likely not get the needed traction, but I'll continue to hope.

Here's what I think...

1. Most comments, voting, etc. come from ADMINS.
   • This means only a very small subset of users actually provide input.
2. Admins represent a HUGE number of users.
   • We very often pass along feedback from our user base.
   • I represent a medium sized company with ~700 users.
   • When I vote it isn't ONE vote, it represents ~700 votes.
   • If you're an admin of a 5000 users, your ONE vote really represents 5000 votes!
3. Requiring customers to VOTE for features and BUG fixes (shocking, I know), is shockingly inefficient and ineffective.
   • these often have MULTIPLE tickets open.
   • Open OFTEN for YEARS.
   • Votes are spread across many issues, reducing their real voice and impact.
   • Issues are hard to find, so they don't get votes.
   • Many users are like me and have given up on submitting or searching and voting because we're discouraged and hope-less. (Just read the comments on old/open tickets.)
4. Atlassian seems to prioritize NEW features over stability and accurate, reliable, full-functional features.  (Bugs are very obviously prioritized FAR BELOW new features.)
   • PARTIAL. ALMOST. SORT OF. CLOSE. These words best describe the "Apps" (referring to the renamed Atlassian "Products" as Apps, not marketplace "Apps")  The irony of this comment is obvious.
   • I.e., Confluence Server vs Cloud,
   • Confluence "legacy editor",
   • lack of parity in functions as simple as searching. E.g., You can sort in one, but not another. You can search by PROJECT NAME or KEY in Jira, but in Confluence only Space NAME and NOT Key. You get a search box in some admin screens, but not others. You can sort some columns in admin screens, but not other.
   • I could go on and on and on and on...
5. The VERBIAGE changes have been confusing.
   • "Apps" change.
   • "Work" change.
   • "Space" change
   • Etc.
   • These changes up-ended YEARS of commonly used terms which provided important distinction between Jira "projects" and Confluence "Spaces", Apps, products, etc. All of these threw our end-users for a loop.

Ok. I need to be done. I look forward to the fixes and changes and renewed attention by Atlassian that will come as a result of our collective voices.  (I don't mean for this to sound as snarky as it does.) I am trying to remain positive. I really do like Atlassian's products and their support for my problems has been EXCELLENT (shout out to the Support Teams!!)  I will keep hoping for a better future!

Thanks, @Shanmuga Narayanan Pitchaipillai for posting this discussion!

—Mark

[Shanmuga Narayanan Pitchaipillai]

100% agreed Mark, Atlassian used to be my go to Agile platform, now i am constantly looking what other alternatives are there, as the changes appear to be tone deaf for long term regular users and stability of long term users is often thrown out with minimal regard.

Top it with removing onprem datacenter option as well, which have shielded large user bases and set workflows from the whims of disconnected designers, this would be detriment of the product.  

We will continue to look for alternatives and until management also realizes that atlassian changes are overwhelming and getting in the way of their product development instead of facilitating it and allow the tools administrators to move away. 

Thats the gap period atlassian has to fix itself if any meaningful to get any continuous flow of changes. So many of their changes appear to be done in silos and disjointed manner, i dont know if Atlassian have any architectural review at all anymore before their rollout of new features , are they even doing any regression testing ? Appears to be NO. 

Which type of customers are they using for their beta test or feedback if at all any for change and product feedback i do not know. 

[Anne Saunders]

@Mark B Wager your #4. PREACH. (I mean, I agree across the board, but 4. 😭)

[Mitchell Cardwell]

“Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

― Steve Jobs

[Mitchell Cardwell]

Of course we all know Atlassian did extensive product planning and testing before rolling this out. It’s Atlassian. What you all seem to fail to realize is you’re in a vocal minority, as their product plans, research and testing bore out this is correct to their product strategy. And that strategy includes the vocal minority bitching and threatening to leave which also happens when they change the radius of button corner.

It’s really hard to argue about a cloud only strategy. We’ve all known this was coming for years. What they’re doing in the cloud cannot be done in data center. data center is no longer fit for purpose.

A unified coherent UI is absolutely necessary to bring all the products and do a single way of working and they chose the best path forward, which was to put it all on the left. There may be things to kvetch about, but this is the MVP and they rolled it and they’re reiterating on it.