The new navigation: Coming to you in 2025

[#1]

Note: Following the success of this Early Access Program (EAP) in October 2024, we're now extending an open invite to all users for the Beta launch of the new navigation.

Hello Community,

The Atlassian Navigation team is excited to introduce a new, modern navigation system designed for consistency, flexibility, and efficiency. In early 2025, this update will be available in Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, Confluence, and Atlassian Home.

We invite you to join our Early Access Program (EAP) to learn more about the new navigation experience.

➡️ Sign up now

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What’s changing?

We’ve reimagined the navigation in Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, Confluence, and Atlassian to help you stay organized, focused, and productive.

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Why are we doing this?

At Atlassian, our mission is to unleash the potential of every team and navigation (top and side bars) in our products is central to how teams find and move work forward. We’ve heard that the existing navigation can sometimes feel inconsistent, rigid, and cumbersome, and used this feedback to build a new navigation.

The new navigation hopes to:

• Deliver a unified look and feel: A consistent appearance and experience across our products will reduce friction and enhance efficiency when switching between tools.

• Empower you to customize your workspace: Personalize our products to match your unique way of working and individual preferences.

• Enable you to stay in the flow: Declutter your space, stay focused on essential tasks, and get to your work with fewer clicks.

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Key experience changes

Features	Details
Focus on what matters to you	Show, reorder, or hide navigation items in the sidebar to best suit your way of working.
Switch between work more efficiently	With Jira projects and queues, and Confluence spaces in the sidebar, switching between different pieces of work has never been faster.
Your most important work at your fingertips	Access items like Your work/Your Home, Recent, and Starred with just a click from the sidebar.  Your work: Find things you've interacted with and resume work. Recent: Any time you visit, edit, or create projects, issues, boards, filters, and dashboards, they’ll show up here. Starred: Items you’ve marked as the most important.
Simplified top navigation	Keeping the focus on essential tasks like search and create, we've decluttered the top navigation to give you easy access to notifications, settings, and your profile. We'll eventually add AI-powered search to this top navigation.
Maximize the focus on your work	The persistent sidebar across all pages, even when you switch between projects and products, ensures you always know your location and navigation options, enhancing contextual awareness. If the sidebar takes up too much space, you can either resize or collapse it.
An improved look and feel	Along with efficiency gains, the new navigation comes with a new look and feel. We’re in the process of redesigning tab navigation, buttons, and other parts of the product to be more visually pleasing.

Note: We’re still building the new navigation experience based on customer feedback from previous experiments and upcoming EAPs. The designs are not final.

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Join our Early Access Program (EAP)

We invite you to join our Early Access Program (EAP) If you’re interested in learning more about the new navigation experience.

Note that we have limited seats for EAP Alpha. There will be more opportunities to participate in the coming weeks. Stay up to date by watching this space for details.

➡️ Sign up now

➡️ Join our focus group to learn more, ask questions, or connect with the team working on the new navigation. 

We are hopeful that the new navigation will make it easier for all teams to plan, track, and collaborate in a more modern and intuitive way. Thank you for all your feedback and support!

Cheers,
The Atlassian Navigation Team

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

Hi @Varsha Patel

Can you just clarify if Beta/GA is expected to be in early 2025, or is EAP starting in early 2025?

Can't seem to be 100% sure about this part:

In early 2025, this update will be available in Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, Confluence, and Atlassian Home.

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Also, regarding Confluence - if the site has a Confluence product, does this mean it will automatically be declined for EAP? We would like to try new navigation on one of our test sites, but all of them have Confluence.

Cheers,
Tom

[Rune Rasmussen]

With the de-cluttering of the top navigation bar, does this mean that everything will become icons that one must memorize the meaning of, or does it mean I could drag-and-drop the things I want on MY top navigation bar?

Decluttering is all well and good, but there is so much unused white/blank space already that could have been used, and I am loathe to see more unused space in the name of "decluttering".

[Rudy Holtkamp]

Hi @Varsha Patel ,

Will we be able to fold/unfold the projects showing in the left menu?

And if so will the setting be remembered?

[Stephen Aldridge]

Great meeting the guys today providing a brilliant demo on the Stand at Team 24 Barcelona, loving the new look and really appreciated the in-depth explanation as to the why’s & how’s. 

Can’t wait to see the new style in place at 90POE and looking forward to more innovative ideas trickling through in 2025 Roadmap. 

Keep up the amazing work guys!!!

[Sonya Petkunas]

Is there a link anyone can share to a demo of the new navigation? Also if we got in an EAP and wanted to go back, is there that ability? @Varsha Patel 

[Sonya Petkunas]

@Stephen Aldridge Hi.. you mentioned in your comments that there was a demo on the new navigation at Team '24 Europe.. what session was that as I would like to watch it

[Stephen Aldridge]

Hi @Sonya Petkunas

Sorry, the demo I was discussing was the 1-2-1 demo on the Atlassian stand at the Team 24 event. No links I'm afraid. 

[Apryl Harris]

Atlassian - I've signed up for New Nav EAP. If my org gets in, I'd like to have the BETA turned on in our Sandbox environment; not PROD (if that's possible). 

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Tomislav Tobijas

We’ve kicked off the EAP this week and it’s available only to a small cohort of sites. We’ll open up another round of EAP soon, which will be open to all.

The GA launch for new navigation is planned for early to mid 2025. We’ll keep you posted on the exact dates closer to the release.

Re: Confluence

We’re accepting Confluence and Jira users but do note that these experiences will be different for this EAP.

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Rune Rasmussen

We’ve focused the top navigation on essential tasks, like search and create, with easy access to global utilities like Notifications, Help, Settings, and Profile/Account. The only icons on the top navigation are these utility icons (no change from today’s experience).

What we mean by decluttering is keeping the top navigation lean and accessible while moving the rest to the sidebar. Furthermore, the sidebar comes with customization that you can organize and set up according to your preference.

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Rudy Holtkamp

Yes, you’ll be able to show and hide the projects in the left sidebar.

The sidebar will remember your last settings. For example, if you “unfolded” your projects, the sidebar will continue to unfold these until you “fold” them.

[Varsha Patel]

@Stephen AldridgeThank you so much. Please stay tuned for updates.

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Sonya Petkunas

Since the new navigation is enabled at the site level for this EAP, all users on the site URL will have the new navigation enabled. But users can turn on/off the new navigation at any time, and it won’t affect other users.

Re: Demo

As @Stephen Aldridge mentioned, the demo was shown at the Team ‘24 event in Europe. We’ll update this focus group with resources soon. So stay tuned for that.

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Apryl Harris

For this EAP, we’re looking for users to use the new navigation in their production sites (not Sandbox environment) as we want to understand how the new navigation works with users workflows and real-time data so we can learn and adapt to make the experience better.

[Apryl Harris]

@Varsha Patel 

I understand Atlassian wants users who would use the new nav in PROD now. However, it would be helpful and a better experience user experience for Jira Admins to learn, adapt to the changes, and have full confidence before it is distributed to the entire user base per instance. Please consider turning the new nav on in Sandbox environments or allowing Jira Admins the ability to turn on the new nav (even while in BETA) as you gather PROD feedback.

Thanks.

[Apryl Harris]

@Varsha Patel 

Will the new nav BETA in PROD have an option for individual users to toggle on/off the new nav? This is how it was done when Jira Align changed its navigation and it was a very helpful way for users to acclimate to the changes over time.

I think was answered already but I'd like to see a short, recorded video demo or a few images that display this functionality.

Thank you.

[Varsha Patel]

Hi @Apryl Harris

We understand the desire for Sandbox environments for the EAP and agree that they can be beneficial for users. However, this EAP is for learning and validating some key assumptions, whereas Beta is more focused on driving familiarity and change management practices for large organizations.

To achieve this, we need real-time data on how the new navigation performs in production environments. For this reason, we’re limiting participation in this EAP to users who are willing to test it in live production sites.

That said, we plan to open future EAPs where admins can test the new navigation in Sandbox environments. It will also be available in Sandbox environments a few months before the official launch.

Re: New nav BETA in PROD

We’ll let you know more about the details of Beta closer to launch. Please stay tuned for updates.

[Anne Saunders]

Does anyone have the name of the session where this was demo'd at Team 24? I'd love to watch it before I enroll. 

[Andrei Eleodor Sirbu]

Hello, does this new navigation takes into account teams whose boards are not attached to a project but to a person ?

We don't create boards linked to a project - we link them to a person (usually an admin or technical account) and filter them on a specific team - this way a team can work on multiple projects from the same board or if a project is finished the team still has an active board and can carry on with another mission. 

This currently breaks some features that Jira offers (such as the Analytics tab available from boards).

Judging from the screenshots you've provided , clicking on a project will lead us to a project board and from there we could navigate to other boards attached to the project with the new navigation menu on top. 

Do you reckon our use case is taken into account ?

Kind regards

Andrei Eleodor Sirbu

[Jens Schumacher - Released_so]

Have you considered removing the breadcrumbs, which really don't serve a purpose anymore in this navigation and take up vertical space? 

The same is true for the large header. Which could be moved below next to the navigation, or even removed completely to make more space. 

[Rune Rasmussen]

I see some of our UI has been decluttered.
Before we had some handy dandy buttons readily available, each with their own singular purpose.
Now we have a "+ Add" button and just fucking oodles of empty space doing nothing.

And when I click on the "+ Add" button I get all the buttons that used to be readily available.

This is not an improvement.
Please Atlassian. Function over form!

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

@Rune Rasmussen the UI on the issue view is this other change that's being gradually deployed at the moment: Quick Add Menu is Getting Decluttered 

[Rune Rasmussen]

@Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_ Thank you.
I'll go voice my complaint there :)

[Fabricio Riveros]

Hi @Varsha Patel how are you?

On my production site I can see the new interface experience, today is November 13, 2024.
Is it possible that the release of the new interface version was brought forward?
How does the Early Access Program (EAP) subscription work?
When I subscribe will I receive advance access to the new features?
I ask this because I have a question:
I don't know if they brought forward the release or if my site administrator joined that EAP program and therefore the changes were impacted prior to the official release.
In my Sandbox instance I see the interface with the previous version.

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

@Fabricio Riveros there was a new navigation beta announcement a couple of days ago: Atlassian’s new navigation is now available in Beta!
Might have been that your organization admin has signed up for it and it was rolled out to that particular site. I would recommend checking the linked article for more information.

As far as I know, official GA is still expected in early 2025.