I’ve been using the new Jira interface for a few weeks now and I’m really struggling with it. At first I thought maybe I just needed more time to get used to the changes, but honestly it’s getting worse not better.
The sidebar navigation feels really messy and hard to use. Everything seems jumbled together without any clear organization. Items that should be grouped together are scattered around, and there’s no visual breaks between different sections. This makes it take way longer to find what I’m looking for.
Simple tasks that used to be quick now require more clicks and scrolling through menus. Basic workflows feel broken and inefficient. I can’t understand how this design made it through testing and approval. Did anyone actually try using this in a real work environment before releasing it?
It’s frustrating because so many teams depend on Jira every day. When you make changes to software that people rely on for their jobs, those changes should make things better not worse. Right now it feels like we’re stuck with this because switching to different project management tools would be a huge hassle for most organizations.
Has anyone else had similar problems with the new navigation? Are there any workarounds or settings that might help?
totally agree! It’s so confusing now, i’m wasting so much time trying to find stuff. They really need to rethink this before it drives everyone bonkers! let’s hope for a quick update.
The redesign definitely has usability issues - they clearly prioritized looks over actual workflow. I’ve been dealing with this for months now. Customizing the project sidebar helps a bit - you can reorder stuff and hide sections you don’t use much in the project settings. The search actually got better though, so I just use the quick search bar instead of clicking through menus. Not ideal, but you get used to it. The real issue is Atlassian designed this for casual users, not people who live in Jira all day. They’ll probably fix some of this based on feedback, but right now we’re stuck working around their design choices.
Went through this same transition six months ago - the frustration’s totally real. Spent an hour digging through the new interface settings and found tons of customization options they don’t make obvious. You can tweak the sidebar layout and pin your most-used stuff to the top, which saves a lot of hunting around. Right-click on pretty much any navigation element - there are new context menus everywhere that weren’t there before. Your muscle memory from the old interface fights you at first, but once you figure out where everything moved, it gets way more manageable. Still not as intuitive as it should be though.
I feel your pain. The new Jira navigation is absolutely terrible - that’s why I automated most of my project management stuff.
Why fight with clunky interfaces? I built custom automation that handles my Jira work without dealing with those awful menus. Auto-creates tickets from emails, updates story points from external triggers, syncs project data across tools.
Once you automate the repetitive stuff, you barely touch the Jira interface. Set up workflows for status updates, notifications, and reporting - no more clicking through scattered navigation.
I use Latenode since it connects directly with Jira’s API and builds automations without complex coding. Create workflows that completely bypass the terrible UI and actually get work done.
Why learn a bad interface when you can automate it away? Check it out: https://latenode.com