nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

The new icons are really difficult to read/view

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

I find the new icons (issue type icons, labels, dates etc) really difficult to read. The icons with a background color were so much easier to view / easy to distinguish. Having very stylized icons might be lovely for a designer but I find it difficult to actually read and use every day.

Comments

Wurm Peter

Thank god they have no background color.
It was hard to distinguish between the issue color and the issue type icons background color.
When you have a parent issue picker, you see both next to each other: Screenshot 2025-04-15 173821.png

michelle_bachmann

@Nadia Burborough - Agreed. As much as I hate a dark background, I turned it on so the icon outlines could be seen better. I'm not sure if I will leave it on since I do a lot of technical writing with screen shots and dark backgrounds have their own issues. (Ever see any instructions for Atlassian with a dark background? Nope!)

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

Hi @Wurm Peter - I'm not following you. Are you saying having the epic icon not have color is easier to read?

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

I'm personally not a fan of a dark background either - I couldn't keep that on for long!

Wurm Peter

In my screenshot you see two "icons": The first one is just blue. The second is a stylized purple lightning.
Now imagine the second would have a blue blackground. Now it would be harder to distinguish between those two.

Debbie Jolley_vo7os5

totally agree Nadia...I went into my sandbox and turned the new 'improved' navigation on for a few seconds to see what you were referring to - and this is a direct comparison of really hard to read on a white background (not everyone can use dark mode - it causes me eye strain) vs nice and clear...

what I might do is see if I can download all the current clear icons before the change, then, once we're forced to update override the new stylised versions (ie change that serves absolutely no useful purpose) with the current clear versions that everyone understands...

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

Understand you now. Yes I can see that could be difficult if they are the same color. I think having a more distinctive 'lightning bolt' (rather than the new almost square looking icon) would help to distinguish.

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

Really great comparison there. Now that I look at them like this, I can certainly see some improvements to readability (because the edges of the icons are unique, and not square boxes) - I guess I'm just missing the heavy use of color.

And when you add the lack of color on labels and dates, all of it feels like it's blending into one another and non-distinguishable.

Anne Saunders

Yeah...the new navigation generally does not seem to be ADA/Section 508 compliant for accessibility. The contrast is just too low. (See also workflow status category colors - To Do is good, Done is..okay, but In Progress gray on powder blue is nearly illegible)

I LOVE the shaped icons, but not the pastel colors of them.

Martin Vali_aexsqj

@Nadia Burborough put up some screenshots of what you mean exactly

Nadia Burborough_k2akj1

Debbie added the icons in her post above, which shows the comparison to the two icon sets. Based on that I updated my point of view to say I can see the benefit of the new icon sets, but just that I'm used to the heavy use of color, and now that it's not there I miss it.

Here's a partial image of a ticket with labels and a date in the new format. These labels and date used to have a background color which I thought helped to give visual clarity.

I'm getting used to things already though ...

Screenshot 2025-04-16 at 1.56.43 PM.png

Michele Colson_777luj

I completely agree. The most frustrating part was replacing the icons for my custom issues with the same style.

Anne Saunders

@Michele Colson SAME! And now I get to do it again 😅

Rick Westbrock

I use dark mode and the new icons are definitely harder to pick out visually for me. In our sandbox tenant I switched to light mode and it's not any better. An example image below shows how the JSM icons are much easier to read:

I wonder why the JSM issue type icons were not refreshed along with the Jira icons.

Dwight Holman

We have the same view - Atlassian's change is just making work for Admins :-(

Dwight Holman

For those that are thinking of replacing Atlassian's new icons with their own custom icons, you might want to follow (and/or vote) for JRACLOUD-43512 Support for custom SVG avatars

Mykenna Cepek

For visual reference, here are the early 2025 icons (prior to the New Navigation):

And here are the late 2025 icons (part of the New Navigation):

Ian Winter_iigvh3

Hey, this is awesome. Do you have the "string name", eg Bug, Epic for each of these? A lot I know but some I don't. TIA!

Mykenna Cepek

Sorry, but unfortunately not. Each icon internally just has an image and a numeric ID.

AFAIK, the default built-in work item types icon assignments are:

Story - green bookmark
Epic - purple lightning bolt
Task - blue square checkmark
Sub-task - two blue squares
Bug - red circle or insect

I believe everything else beyond that is a site-specific customization. As you add new work item types, you get to pick an icon for them. So YMMV.

Some recommendations that just kind of make sense (assuming they have value for your teams):

Spike or Request - light bulb
Incident - exclamation point
Tech Debt, Performance Improvement - up-arrow
Quote, RFP, etc - blue pen or currency

I avoid most of the second row because they are smaller and harder to distinguish.

Some Marketplace Apps will add their own icons (e.g Zephyr), as will some Atlassian Products Apps.

Many of us are also waiting for Atlassian to allow high-quality image upload of work item type icons. Internally the default icons are SVG which allow for optimal scaling, but are more difficult to create. Anyone have a link to that suggestion so we can vote on it?

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