The New Atlassian Navigation and the thoughts behind it

As we are moving into March, more users will experience the new Atlassian navigation for the first time. Some of them will love it, some of them will hate it. Regardless how they feel, they have to get used to it because it is the new standard that we will see in all Atlassian products. Considering that Atlassian have already tried a sidebar main navigation before, and it was quickly changed because it was universally hated, why are Atlassian rolling this out again?

The answer can be found in this YouTube clip where Kristin Perchal go through the reasoning. This is a recap I believe from the Webinar (hidden behind a sign-up form) called Unpacking the new Atlassian global navigation experience. Kristin is doing a great presentation to explain the reasoning, so let us break them down.

The Problem the new Atlassian navigation need to solve

The Atlassian Mission "Unleash the potential of every team" and the fact that a lot of user have complained that finding things in the Atlassian products is a problem. In fact measurements show that 40% of the time spent by knowledge seekers are spent finding information in the products. The phrasing is interesting because I doubt anyone working in the tools spend 40% of their time trying to find things, so I assume what is meant here is that we spend more time finding things when we are looking for it than the fact that the navigation is bad. This has more to do with how well the users understand and know the products.

33% of the negative CSAT feedback relates to navigation and findability. Again, this goes more towards understanding the products, but also to a more interesting problem: Inconsistency.

This is a very true statement, and it is not just affecting the navigation and findability, but also impact the language and functionality. Teams is one such area as well as the use of the word Epic in different tools. I think this is by far the most important reason for changing the navigation and for doing so across multiple products. We also see Atlassian absorbing external platforms like Opsgenie into the standard products, which also help align consistency and increase the value of core Atlassian products.

I like that Atlassian is focusing on this and that they are working on language and functionality, even though I think their internal organization and their commitment to Agile methodologies are challenging for them. I look forward to more initiatives like this to remove bad language and align products and functionality consistently across all products.

I am not sure these statements are true because the clutter is very much there and the readability has not improved, especially with the light font and iconography that provide little guidance for the eye. I also do not think the findability improves much unless people were having problems finding functions due to the navigation itself, which is not my experience after teaching thousands of users. The problem is naming and understanding the tool, not to find where the link to a function is located, but that is a topic for another time.

No matter if we like the design or not, it is a good thing to align into a consistent design pattern. If the future show that this is not the right way forward so we see a repeat of the Blue sidebar navigation in 2018, then a change will be done across all products, and it will be consistent. This is very good.

Will the sidebar design scale better than the top navigation? Yes, I believe it will, even if it will be a challenge to keep in from cluttering. I am curious how they will tackle the secondary navigation that is now horizontal (so we have basically switched directions) as I see that navigation is already at risk of overflowing.

Overall the sidebar design should provide better scalability, but there are of course disadvantages to this as well as you risk pushing navigation areas out when the navigation tree becomes large enough. The amount of sub-nodes in the navigation is also an issue as they are now quite many in some areas.

The solution to solve the problems for the Atlassian Navigation.

This is where I chuckle a bit because this is Atlassian in a nutshell these days. They want the cake and eat it too. What this refers to is the functionality in the new navigation to reorder and hide parts of the navigation so you get your own structure and your own navigation tree. If you are changing a navigation pattern with the desired outcome is to provide a more consistent experience, how is this aligned with every user having their own navigation structure and their own content in the navigation tree?

Yes, the functionality for each node is consistent, but the navigation now moves from a consistent per product design to a variable solution on an individual level. I think this will introduce a lot of confusion and for content creators and product trainers this will add another challenge where our navigation structure may look very different from the users that rely on our content or trainings.

I already have seen a few cases where people get upset because they can't find something in the navigation because they forgot that they hid it from view, or because they have moved it and forgot about it.

On the upside though I know a lot of people like this, especially the early adopters. The question is just if it will add more value than frustration across the entire user base.

The idea to take experiences from other tools to reduce cognitive load does not really make sense to me, because the top navigation is a well known pattern. Not having to jump back and forth and having more room to expand the navigation than in a top navigation makes more sense to me. The downside with a sidebar navigation that expands however is that once your navigation become long enough you will effectively push navigation areas out of sight, which can have negative effects.

The top navigation can use the "More" functionality so it breaks off the navigation nodes that can't fit, which has its advantages and disadvantages. I don't think the sidebar navigation will be better or worse in that regard. The visibility is a bigger concern, but that can be enhanced, perhaps with a selection in the personal settings.

I have always despised these buzzwords because there is no such thing as a "modern" anything and when you add fresh, it just means they wanted something new. Nothing wrong with that, but just say that you were bored with the old design and wanted some new eye candy.

The result from user testing the new Atlassian navigation

The webinar show some impressive stats, but without the actual data on how those numbers came to be. This is typical when you want to hide the actual data, or when you don't want the viewers to focus on the metric, but the message.

For example 97% stayed with the new navigation once they had it, which makes sense since this will be the new standard. There is no advantage in reverting, unless you are just so disgusted that you absolutely can't use it, or you want to stay with what you know a little longer. These tests were done in an EAP and later in an open Beta, which means you got the early adopters taking the tests. Still, it is a good indicator that we will not see the repeat of the blue sidebar mistake.

Stats without any data attached to them are thrown in for good measure and I would take those with a grain of salt since we don't know the metric for those.

• More Active Users

• More Active Teams

• More Cross product usage

• More efficient navigation to progress your work

Considering the claim that users spend 40% of the time spent by knowledge seekers are spent finding information in the products, it would be strange if these things were not true, but the question is what are the measurement points and to what extent are these arbitrary measurements measured?

When will the new Atlassian navigation roll out?

This has been a bit of a mystery because it has not been published anywhere as I have seen. You can only see this roadmap in this webinar and even there it is noted that dates are subject to change. There are five dates in this roadmap, starting with the EAP and Open Beta that started in October last year, and it ends with full rollout in September 2025. Here are the dates and when you can expect to see the new navigation in your Atlassian products.

March '25

• Start rollout for Standard edition

• All Free Edition

• All new Trials

• Opt in for all Sandboxes

July '25

• Start rollout for Premium edition customers

September '25

• Start rollout for Enterprise edition

December '25

• 100% all customers on new navigation

What is my impression of the new Atlassian navigation?

My personal impression of using the new navigation for a few months is that it is not bad, but as a long term user it takes longer now as I am not familiar with the new icons, the new structure or even where functionality is located. I often find myself scanning the tree trying to figure out where in the tree I am currently at and then trying to find out where to go to find things like board configurations as those are a little hidden.

I think that the users that have working in the products will have their productivity go down initially as they have to re-learn patterns. This is normal when you change navigations and it is a temporary issue. It is however something you need to take into consideration for when the new navigation is rolled out for your organization.

I also believe that this change will see a good amout of resistance, but that this resistance has more to do with the human nature to resist change than that this new Atlassian navigation is bad. As a UX designer and experienced user of the Atlassian products I have opinions, but as with all design opinions will always differ and at the end of the day it is Atlassian that have the final say if this new Atlassian design fit their vision of their products.

I also find the clarifications on the design decisions, not just in the video where Kristin Perchal go over the business decisions, but also in the article by Tarra Van Amerongen, Head of Design Jira Platform where she go through the design decisions in a very nice way. The article is named Designing Atlassian’s new navigation and you can find it in the Atlassian Blog.

Comparing this with the old blue sidebar, which was not received well, I don't think we will have the same issue with this design. The old blue sidebar had a very bad navigation switch system, which we still have for Jira Service Management by the way, which switched the navigation with a new navigation. This was very difficult to navigate and you often got lost, not really knowing on what "slide" of the navigation you were currently on.

Back in 2019 when Atlassian changed from the blue sidebar to the top navigation people where very happy necause the experience was very confusing. You can see the comparison between the old blue sidebar and the new cloud on this page written by Rachel Wright on her excellent website Strategy for Jira.

I don't think we will see the same situation this time, but that all depends on how vocal people will be about resisting this new design for the Atlassian navigation across all their products eventually.

Overall I am positive about this change and I think it fit well into the new direction I think Atlassian is heading where they are tightening their product portfolio and rather than selling products they are aiming for one product with multiple modules...

What do you think?