From a refreshed interface to evolving terminology, Atlassian is making bold moves to simplify, unify, and modernize the user experience across its Cloud platform. These changes are more than cosmetic—they reflect a deeper shift toward a modular, connected, and intelligent cloud ecosystem.
Let’s explore the most important UX changes now rolling out across Jira, Confluence, and Atlassian Home—and what they mean for teams and admins alike.
Atlassian is in the midst of one of its most significant user experience redesigns in recent years: the rollout of a new, unified navigation across its Cloud platform. This isn't just a visual refresh—it’s a foundational shift aimed at improving discoverability, consistency, and focus across all Atlassian apps.
Source: Atlassian
As Atlassian's ecosystem has grown—bringing tools like Jira, Confluence, Loom, Atlas, and Trello closer together—the need for a consistent, intuitive navigation experience became impossible to ignore. Users were switching between products with different layouts, menus, and workflows, often leading to context switching and confusion. For admins managing multiple tools, the fragmentation was even more pronounced.
The new navigation addresses this by aligning design patterns, language, and layouts across the entire Atlassian platform. It's part of Atlassian's broader shift from disconnected products to a modular platform of connected apps. With this change, users spend less time figuring out where things are—and more time getting work done.
The redesign introduces a left-hand, global navigation menu that brings together key elements across apps in one place:
In Jira, users will now see consistent access to Projects, Work, Goals, and Atlassian Home.
In Confluence, Spaces, Recent, Templates, and shared resources are easier to find and navigate.
Atlassian Home has been reimagined as the central starting point, featuring personalized content like “Your work,” team goals, and cross-app insights.
The goal is to reduce visual noise, centralize key functionality, and make the navigation experience feel familiar—regardless of which Atlassian app you're in. This also sets the stage for deeper cross-app integrations, powered by the Teamwork Graph.
Source: Atlassian
The new navigation started rolling out even before Team'25, with the option to opt in for early access in most products. As of now, it’s available in:
Jira
Confluence
Atlassian Home
The experience will gradually become the default across all users over the course of 2025, with opt-out options being phased out as the transition progresses. The rollout is being closely monitored and iterated upon based on user feedback gathered through Atlassian Community, support channels, and in-app surveys.
The updated experience is also documented extensively across Atlassian’s support and product blogs, making onboarding smoother for teams and administrators alike.
One of the more philosophical changes announced is the renaming of “Issues” to “Work Items” across Jira. This isn’t just about language—it reflects a broader strategy to make Jira more inclusive for all types of teams, beyond software development.
Source: Atlassian
Where "issue" once implied bugs or tickets, "work item" now represents any unit of work, whether it’s a design task, marketing brief, or customer request. It’s part of a larger effort to make Jira a tool that’s equally welcoming to engineering, business, and cross-functional teams.
This change is gradually being introduced across Jira Cloud experiences, and while functionality remains the same, the updated terminology aims to create a more unified and versatile language for collaboration.
Check out Atlassian's overview for more information.
Another major shift is happening at the platform level: Atlassian’s "products" are now officially "apps." Starting April 10, 2025, the Atlassian Administration UI began updating terminology across the board, marking a significant change in how the platform is structured and communicated.
This is not just semantic. The move reflects Atlassian’s commitment to a modular, platform-powered ecosystem, where each app (like Jira, Confluence, or Loom) is part of a larger, connected experience. The platform is designed to give users flexibility, consistency, and enterprise-grade compliance, no matter which combination of apps they use.
Admins will now see:
“Products” renamed to “Apps” throughout the Admin UI.
Pages like “Products” and “Product updates” renamed to “Apps” and “App updates.”
The “Product admin” role renamed to “App admin” (without changes to permissions).
To reduce confusion, Atlassian has clarified terminology:
Atlassian apps = former Atlassian products like Jira, Confluence, Loom.
Marketplace apps = integrations and add-ons from the Atlassian Marketplace.
Mobile apps = mobile versions of Atlassian apps.
Atlassian’s latest UX updates mark a turning point—not just in design, but in the very way users engage with the platform. Navigation is becoming smarter and more consistent. Language is evolving to reflect modern, cross-functional ways of working. And the shift to apps highlights a flexible, scalable foundation for the future.
For admins and end users alike, these changes signal a more intuitive and cohesive Atlassian experience—one that’s built to grow and adapt as teams do.
This enhancement brings peace of mind to compliance-conscious organizations, extending the control and visibility of where data lives.