Quick Add Menu is Getting Decluttered

[#1]

Hello Community, 

I'm Ahmud, a product manager on the issue experience team in Jira Cloud. Today, I'm thrilled to announce a change that is coming soon. We are streamlining the quick-add buttons in the issue view to reduce clutter, enhance clarity, and improve scalability. You will now find buttons like “Attach” and “Linked issues” grouped under the Add button, while buttons from your third-party integrations will be located under Apps.

Why We’re Making This Change

As the Atlassian ecosystem has grown, the Quick Actions Menu has become cluttered, making it difficult for users to efficiently find and use essential actions. The addition of numerous actions (attach, link, create, etc) and apps has led to cognitive overload and negatively affected task completion. To maintain a high level of usability, especially as we continue to add new features and integrations, we needed a scalable solution.

With this redesign, we’re addressing these challenges by making the menu simpler, more consistent, and easier to navigate.

What’s New? Introducing a More Streamlined Menu

The Quick Actions Menu is now designed with consolidation and clarity in mind. We’ve reorganised actions and apps into clear, dedicated dropdown menus that make interactions more intuitive and accessible.

• Unified Add Content Dropdown:
  We’ve grouped all core actions into a single, consolidated dropdown. This change reduces clutter and helps you quickly find essential actions, ensuring a smoother, more efficient experience.

• Apps Dropdown:
  Apps now have their own dedicated dropdown, improving the discoverability of apps you’ve integrated with Jira and other Atlassian products.

Feedback Welcomed! 

This is the first step in making it easier to perform actions, insert objects, and interact with apps. We are continuing to invest in this experience and would love your feedback to make it even better


Thanks, 

Ahmud 
Jira Cloud PM

[John Elder]

This is a big enough UI/functionality change that I would like to give my users a bit of advanced notice.  Is this something that a firm date can be established for the start of rollout?  

[tomizawa yumi]

Is this change only for Jira Cloud, or does it also apply to Jira Service Management Cloud?

[Gary Spross]

When will this begin rolling out?

[Adam Janecke]

When is this going to be released? 

[David Holman]

So it's now two clicks for the most common action … `Link issue` 😞

[Arkadiusz Seidel]

Admins should be able to pin items from both categories so that they would remain visible outside of the dropdown and available for one-click action at all times.

So dropdown by default, but if you want to quickly access `link issue` button, then pin it.

Please consider.

[Michael Klann]

I prefer to keep the essential actions directly accessible with 1 click!

---

As a software developer I totally understand that constantly new features are added, just because its so much fun to develop new stuff.

But is it really necessary? given that you realized that jira is cluttered with buttons ... maybe less is more?

Maybe other companies need all the other/new features. But in that case, allow the companies to configure jira such that their most needed features are directly accessible.  

[Lara Bailey]

You wrote "This is the first step in making it easier to perform actions, insert objects, and interact with apps."
I assume you meant to write "This is the first step in making it harder to perform actions, insert objects, and interact with apps.", since what your're proposing would make it more difficult to find the most common things we want to do (and as others pointed out - slower, because more clicks).. harder for 80% means overall harder, not easier.

Leave it alone, or allow us to choose which buttons to feature, but hiding everything is not making it easier.

[Brandy Beerens]

I'm with others, 'link issue' should not be more then one click that needs to stay on its own not in a dropdown.

[Milad S.]

Hi @Ahmud Auleear,

I understand why you are doing this. However, I wish you had made "create subtask" and "link issue" available, at least when none are on the ticket. This will prompt users to do that (at least the first one). We can use the + on top of the subtask or linked issue sections to add more.

Ultimately, you should allow users/admins to pin their favourite action there (icon or icon & text).

[Nikhil Kundra]

Hi @Ahmud Auleear

1. Can we opt out of this change? Or could you please provide the option to?
2. Our instance didn't have unnecessary clutter
3. So by not creating a simple yet elegant ability to create and "Pin"/"Favorite" and be able re-arrange specific Shortcuts (e.g. "Created Linked Issue") or specific Add-Ons (e.g. SmartChecklist) so they're accessible and actionable in 1 click (as they have been)—which would have solved both your goal of having a clean UI and thousands of Users' goals of having a speedy and accessible UX—everyone now has to click at least 100% more to access common/frequent shortcuts.
4. Org/Jira Admins also now lose the "Immediate Awareness" effect (cues and triggers that spawn positive routines and create productive habits) ➡️ by helping staff see these icons/shortcuts (e.g. a pinned/favorite Shortcut or Add-On on the Issue View), we could have those icons (i) act as positive triggers to help them remember to do something productive or (ii) as a method to increase autonomic compliance with the best operational standards so staff could innately take quick & effective action without having to think about or remember something. Unfortunately, this power of habit is gone for now.

Thus:

• Can we provide option to revert the change?
• Or can we ideally implement the feature described?
• Bonus: As others have mentioned, if Org/Jira Admins could specify which Shortcuts and Add-Ons are prominently shown (and how they're arranged) on the main Issue View (such that the most important ones are always accessible and actionable in 1 click—without having to first click those `+Add` or `Apps` buttons to create awareness or remember something), we could create the best cue, triggers, and habits that improve focus, speed, and quality.

Hope this makes sense 🙏

Thank you

P.S. Please consider using Mixpanel and tracking how often and which Orgs and Users use these quick-action icons and shortcuts. (And if you do already, please share these details as your customers are designers, developers, product people—all using data to support their decisions and all using your product to increase operational efficiency and productiveness—so we’re acutely aware of and sensitive to changes that neither seem logical, nor seem to solve actual problems in Jira that we’ve voted on and expressed serious disappointment without any adequate action or reply from Atlassian.)

[Sean Lively]

These kinds of horrific UI changes in Bitbucket Cloud was the final nail in the coffin driving my team to Github.

You've hidden the most useful button, Linked issue, under another click. Did ya'll even bother to check logs to see what button is used the most? No, because what this change is really about is making the App Marketplace more visible. 

This "Feature" needs to be turned off.

[Lara Bailey]

I also suspect that linking an issue is the most used (along with creating a sub-task), but it could be that only we who use it are complaining, and there are others used just as much or more that haven't complained (yet).

Sean Lively - Good idea to check how often each is used and preserve the one-click feature for those used the most.

If the distribution doesn't highly favour any actions as much as we think (or, just to be future-forward and flexible..) - then do the extra work and allow us to choose which one or two actions get the coveted one-click spots base on our own needs.

Regardless - the one-click factor on it's own is not the most important reason why the proposed change is so upsetting. It's that they will no longer be immediately visible, and thus people will forget they exist, and forget to use them, which is counter-productive to Jira's goals, and very annoying for the us who are trying to get people to use Jira properly/fully.

Nikhil Kundra highlighted this point (#4) as well. Out-of-sight = out-of-mind = stop using

[Rick Westbrock]

This hit our tenant today and I really don't care for it at all. I know it's only one extra click but I never thought that quick actions was "cluttered" in any way.  I would really appreciate at least a global administrator setting to revert back to the old UI and even better would be a per-project setting for that.

[David Holman]

It hit my instance today too 😒

I didn't expect the `Add` and `Apps` buttons. Now everything my team uses (subtasks, links, and checklists) are hidden under two different buttons. 

My teams don't think of "apps" vs native functionality. This is a great example of the UI reflecting the system architecture rather than the user's perception. 

I assume this was all driven by trying to embed Loom into the experience. I like Loom, but I've moved away from it because I expect Atlassian to ruin it like previous acquisitions. 

You've made basic functionality worse to presumably drive adoption of an add on. Thanks again, Atlassian.

[Adam Janecke]

I am not fan of this change either unless the devs can change it so that the users/agents can set/pin their own specific shortcuts outside of the quick action menu otherwise it is just more clicks to get to things we use all the time.

Any update @Ahmud Auleear if this change can be optional or not? It sounds like there might be a fair bit of people who will not like this change.  

Ahmud Auleear

[Susan Waldrip]

It's interesting, I never thought of those buttons as "clutter". To "second" what @Lara Bailey and @Nikhil Kundra said, I depend on visual cues AND on the fewest clicks to an often-used feature so I don't forget it's available, where it is, or how to get to it. Would be really helpful to leave the row of buttons there, add a "Hide" link similar to the nice "Hide Details" link in the Description field of the Issue View screen, or keep the Add button but add the capability to "pin" the options we use most.

[Nikhil Kundra]

Yeah, this is really disappointing. I’d like to speak to some of the product or UI/UX designers at Atlassian.

• What data supported this change?
• Under what scenarios should UI be valued over UX?
• What are potential benefits?
• What are potential disappointments?
• How are these ranked and scored?

IMO:

1. Designers / Devs that value UI so much more than UX are those who do not understand the functional use cases of their current or potential customers/users—and are those unfortunate people who are quick to rip out functionality “for the sake of UI aesthetics” without being creative enough to design a method that provides the same UX value in tandem with the UI release.
2. Disappointing for sure.
3. And there are more important bugs/feature requests with Jira that Scott Belsky (if he’s still coming to Atlassian) or whoever the Product Lead is should be prioritizing over this.

[Yannis Caff]

Please revert this. It makes no sense hiding the "Quick" Menu buttons behind a dropdown.

[Alex Kras]

Big plus one. You don't have to revert, but I would REALLY appreciate if you can make it optional. 

I link issues and create sub-tasks all day long, so those extra clicks really add up :( 

[Kristen Hugg]

Got to watch this hit my instance in a real-time scenario today. Sat in on sprint planning and the user running the meeting (a user, not an admin of Jira, just someone who is trying to use Jira to just do their regular job) went:

"Where did the link issue button go? It was just here??? I can't find it!"

And after I pointed out the "Add" button:
"Wow, I wasn't expecting that at all."

Let me repeat that.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting that at all."

See, this is the problem, Atlassian product team - you're making choices based on, what, exactly? Please enlighten us. Where are the analytics and stats? Look at everyone else who's posted before me - the linked issue button shouldn't be hidden away, it's a critical feature. And I'm sure the other buttons can be considered critical by other users and teams depending on who you ask.

There should have been an in-app announcement about this being rolled out.
There should have been an estimated date for when this would hit cloud instances.
Highlighting the new button as a call to action is NOT the way to tell users about a significant change.

The only reason I even knew this was coming down the pipeline was because I had the good sense to read one of your recent emails, more out of duress than interest, because your rollouts are unpredictable. Trick or treat, except it's just horrible pranks with you lately. 🎃

[Jesse Stephenson]

So, when do we get to go back to actual quick menu buttons? Hiding away frequently used functionality like issue linking is terrible for the user experience. Being able to customise the quick menu so that we can choose quick actions with an overflow button would be so much better. 

[Sebastian Walter _SEBO_]

And soon they relase an option for premium that we will be able to configure buttons like its useful for productivity... 

[ヴァリエンテ フロリアン_Florian Valiente_]

I thought this was part of the EAP we are in for the new navigation and put it in my EAP feedback, but seems like it's one that has been rolled out already to all.

1 click vs 2 clicks -> 1 click wins everytime!

This is like the shortcuts in the new navigation needing an extra click to get to the SHORTCUT.

[Tara Ferguson]

This is an impediment to every ticket I create now. If you're keeping the UX, what about adding a keyboard shortcuts to access that menu so I don't have to mouse to it every time?