New UI

[David Stokes]

Hi everyone

I'm not normally ranter, but I'm getting pretty frustrated over the transition to the new JIRA UI.  Don't get me wrong, the old UI is really hard to use, particularly for new users - it's well overdue for an overhaul.

But what I'm struggling with is the way this transition has been happening.  I'm getting the distinct feeling that the approach being used by Atlassian is removing all functionality and then see what users complain about it not being there.

For someone like me, I know how to find my way back to the old UI, but I'm really concerned about the impact on new or less experienced users.

Take the example of links between JIRA pages and Confluence - this is meant to be leveraging the excellent integration between the tools and why it's better to go down that track rather than integrating tools from different vendors.

In the new JIRA UI, it does not allow you to create or view existing links to Confluence pages.  OMG!

I have recommended and implemented the Atlassian tools in well over 20 companies, but I'm starting to reconsider whether it's the right thing to do with issues like this.

Rant over.

I'd really like to have some sort of response from Atlassian on this and some reassurance that these issues are going to be addressed.

BTW - I reported this as a bug a month ago and this is the response I got:

"While we'd love to say this will be fixed soon, we're unable to give an estimate for fix just yet. We will be following up with our bug fix team on your behalf for this issue, as they will need to continue to assess the impact and prioritize the issue against our current backlog. If you want to be updated on the progress, please feel free to add yourself as a watcher to the bug report.

I am attaching our bug fix policy as an FYI : Atlassian Bug Fixing Policy"

Regards

David

[Matt Tse]

Hi @David Stokes!

Thanks for sharing your feedback with us. I'm one of the product managers that works on the Jira Cloud team.

I'd like to learn more about the different issues you're referring to with regards to the old vs new UI. Would you be free to jump on a call sometime? If so, feel free to book a time that works for you: https://calendly.com/mtse/jira-customer-interview/. 

Cheers,

Matt

[Kevin Altman]

If you are still looking for feedback, I find the new UI unusable.

[Matt Tse]

Hey @Kevin Altman , 

Sorry for not seeing this sooner. My door's always open for discussing our UI. If you'd like, please book a time with me and let's chat!

https://calendly.com/mtse/jira-cloud-chat

[Kevin Altman]

Hi Matt, your link doesn't work. It results in a page that says:

This Calendly URL is not valid.

This thread continues to receive comments of people very unhappy with the new UI. The only reason there is not more discontent is probably because the old UI is still being made available. I would ask that your team consider making a formal reply to the various issues presented in this thread and some guidance regarding your plans for the new UI, if any, to remedy the usability issues brought up regarding it.

[Meagan]

I know this thread was for JIRA UI, but this is related to UI updates:

The new UI for PR's (New Pull Request Experience - Beta) is unusable and difficult to navigate. I tried it for a month to try and get use to it but, to put it bluntly, it sucks. The layout is terrible and it's hard to find things. Nothing is intuitive.

An intern I work with though PR's were difficult to go though until I showed him the old view. Now he is going through things faster, since the old UI is easier to find/view things and navigate through.

Can we please keep the old view as an option for bitbucket? Since it's actually useable compared to the new UI? 

[Michael Migliori]

Hi there,

I've been really annoyed lately about Cloud Apps in general, not just Atlassian apps and reading all the rents I could find here made me realized I'm far from being the only one...

Usually when complaining about UI changes people throw in your face a "you need to embrace change" as if it was the moto of a cult manipulating people by guilt tripping them into thinking that they are way too sentimental and nostalgic and unable to move forward, scared like an old grandpa unwilling to use a the internet. If you ask me, looks like a good way to step on complains and do whatever you want in the name of the goddess "Change".

The truth is people like change when it is subtle and actually valuable. They accept change when you don't disturb their habits too much which are the essence of productivity. You have to understand that the way people use UIs today is by calling years of inherited habits. For example, the habit of having a "cross" icon at the top of a window to close it, or the habit of using box with a flashing caret to imply input. Unfortunately there seem to be a trend nowadays to simply ignore all this inheritance and throw people in a world where everything has to be rediscovered from scratch. All this in the name of another goddess "Minimalism". No doubt there is some good in there, the issue is not the change itself, it's how you bring it.

In the old days, if an editor did a drastic change to their UI hated by most, people would simply not update or at least wait to update until their complains were heard and their feedback implemented. But today customers no longer have a choice thanks to Cloud Apps! I can picture editors rubbing their hands as they are now able to impose their tyranny of change! What a gloomy future for users!

One of the culprit in this mess is surely untested continuous delivery... CI is a powerful tool but too many abuse it. In a perfect world, drastic changes should be user-tested, AB tested etc. by a panel of relevant people such as usual customers. When I see so many complains I can't help but thinking that this was never done or done with a panel of people who don't really use the product on a daily basis. But in the end, this seems rather logical as it must be quite complex and costly to call a panel of testers for any minor change about to be deployed... Here's how continuous delivery kills UX.

Here are your keywords for a deadly cocktail: minimalism (=drastic change), cloud (=editor tyranny), continuous delivery (=no user testing)

This is all a bit depressing and I do hope that the industry will come to realize that users should be the ones driving changes, not the other way around.

Cheers,

[Kat Warner]

Welcome @[deleted]

Please keep contributing to this community. This post is great!

[Michael Migliori]

Thank you @Kat Warner for your positive comment.

I might keep posting ;-)