Jira sidebar hamburger menu

navigation
menu
#1

I’m writing to inquire about a recent change, we at Tempo, noticed on Jira cloud, where a hamburger menu was introduced to the sidebar, changing some of the navigation.

This has quite an effect on our products as it introduces an element that floats over into the iframe used by Tempo, decreases the horizontal space available to us and introduces a hover element that expands and covers our navigational elements. I haven’t found much information relating to this change.

Is this a part of an A/B test or a full rollout and update to the navigation that is here to stay. And if so, is there any documentation accessible on how you envision this change affects ecosystem vendors, best practice rules etc.

Are there any more updates such as this in the pipeline that could affect vendor products.

#2

Hi @kristin,

My name is John and I’m a product designer currently working on Jira Cloud navigation and findablity.

The new hamburger was introduce due to negative feedback that was received regarding our previous collapsed sidebar (“icon soup”). This update will only affect users who choose to navigate with a collapsed sidebar. We have tried to minimise the amount of horizontal space we used but admittedly the new flyout required an extra strip be added to the sidebar as an affordance for our users.

This flyout has been designed to only cover page content while a user hovers over the new strip. We have also added a 250ms delay to reduce accidental activation.

Our updated collapsed sidebar was rolled out to 100% of users in late November and is no longer an experiment. Documentation is available from: https://atlaskit.atlassian.com/packages/core/navigation-next

We are actively working in this problem space and when we have further changes we will ensure we communicate these early with vendors :slight_smile:

#3

Hi John and thanks for your reply.

One of the more problematic issues is that the target for automatically expanding the Jira sidebar is covering 40% of our navigation (see graphic).

This has the following effects.

  1. When user’s mouse pointer is coming from the left of our sidebar he is unable to select one of our menu options without the Jira sidebar expanding to block it. See video.
  2. When user’s mouse pointer is coming from the right of our sidebar it is very easy for user to trigger the Jira sidebar expansion by accident, thereby covering our menu.See video

sidebar%20target
Video: From left
Video: From right

As you see these changes are negatively affecting the experience of Tempo users. About 20% of Jira Cloud customers are also using Tempo so the number of affected users is quite high.

I hope you are willing to revisit those changes with the goal to eliminate this overlap. It is very important to us to be aware of changes like this one in good advance so that we can prepare and give you feedback before customers are affected. I would be happy to get on a call with you so that we can align our vision to be able to optimize the experience for both Jira and Tempo (and other Jira vendors) customers. With regards to ‘findability’, Jira navigation is a tough place to live in for vendors :).

Kind regards
Kristín Hreinsdóttir
PM for Tempo on Jira Cloud

#4

Hey Kristin,

Pleased to meet you virtually! My name’s Matt and I work on the product management team for Jira Cloud. Really appreciate you sharing your feedback with us regarding the use of Jira’s sidebar(s).

We would be more than happy to get on a call to discuss alignment going forward so that we can help you create the best possible experience for users of your app. John’s currently out of office and won’t be back until February 20th. Could I ask that you find a day afterwards that works for you? You can book time here: https://calendly.com/mtse/jira-cloud-chat.

Cheers,
Matt