Change space color with new Confluence 'experience' ?
Asked by Joel Andrews:

We would like to change the colors for the individual spaces within Confluence. The new 'experience' blanket every space the same now. It was much easier before when we had different colors for each of our spaces. Can this option be re-enabled? If not, we will have to opt-out of the new UI.


Answers:
author: Kimberly Cakebread
body: klunky but effective workaround for the loss of space color: host a colored bar on imgur and add it to the header.

![kbworkaround.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5362i4C0DE6A907958B44/image-dimensions/486x143?v=v2 "kbworkaround.png")

comments: author: Dessislav Valkov
body: Good idea!


author: Joel Andrews
body: Nice!


author: Martin Sauter
body: [@Joel Andrews](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1144750)As far as I learned the option to opt-out will go away soon (unfortunately).

![confluence_new_ui.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/4928i888D155A61AE3D25/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "confluence_new_ui.png")

comments: author: Joel Andrews
body: [@Martin Sauter](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/690213)I've learned the same, and the only way to change that in the future will be to use the pay-to-use theme packs.

[@Shannon S](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/510046)I think this is a bad practice, I've received nothing but complains and concerns from my teams. Why would a new theme be forced onto cloud users?


author: Rob Buijs
body: This new UI is going to be a disaster for my users. It's bland, usability has gone down, spaces all get the same bland look.

It's a confusing mess.


author: Shannon S
body: Hi Martin,

Thank you for your feedback. You may be aware that Confluence has changed its default look several times in the past, and this is simply the new direction it is taking. Please feel free to send feedback via the form on your instance, if you see improvements that we can make to this new theme.

Take care!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Martin Sauter
body: Hi Shannon

I've sent my feedback already over any channel I could think of.

There was a minor improvement of the page tree loading time, but all the other problems remain, and nobody from the Atlassian staff has a real interest to discuss them with me.

I therefore opted out from the new UI, but now Atlassian plans to force me to use the new UI anyway.

I used to be the Confluence evangelist in our company, but currently I am simply disappointed and frustrated -- and I am not the only one.

Please read my feedback over here:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/What-just-happened-to-Confluence-Cloud/td-p/622890#M301>

Kind regards,  
Martin


author: Shannon S
body: Hi Martin,

Thank you for showing me that. I've spoken with the team and they let me know that they've been in touch with you directly via email. If you aren't receiving their emails for any reason, please let me know!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Martin Sauter
body: Hi Shannon

You're absolutely right: one of your colleagues contacted me regarding the poor performance of the page tree, which gave me the opportunity to provide a screen recording to illustrate the problem. So saying \<\<nobody from the Atlassian staff has a real interest\>\> is not fully accurate, my apologies for that. Even if the performance is still an issue I am grateful that she took the time to forward this to the developers and to give me feedback later.

On the other hand I was referring to "++all the other problems++", and there I cannot see that Atlassian really cares for the opinion of it's users. If you read through the thread mentioned above you will find many experienced Confluence Cloud users who are really obset, and in my opinion they have some very valuable inputs for your UI team, but they don't get answers. They only get a notification on top of there Confluence saying that they will be forced to use the new UI anyway within a few days.

Is Atlassian aware of the consequences this may have in a large organisation where Confluence is used as a knowledge base, a product documentation, or an intranet? Does Atlassian care about the many people who will be forced to change their way of working just for a shiny new design that removes many features that were so important and made Confluence special?

So why not leave the option to opt-out and let the users decide which UI is better for them?

Kind regards,  
Martin


author: Liron
body: Hey Martin,

Thanks for your reply here.

Just regarding Atlassian caring - I apologize if you feel this isn't so. My team and I have been reading through thousands of pieces of both negative and positive feedback on a daily basis, adjusting our roadmaps and decisions accordingly. Contacting customers either by email or setting up interviews is something we do on a regular basis - just like our email conversation - and we do this because we do care. Really.

I want you to know that we are taking everything that is said seriously, and we are considering and reconsidering our steps and roadmap based on what our users want.

Please stay tuned for further updates,

Liron


author: Shannon S
body: Hi Joel,

Most customizations are not available at this moment per our [blog on the New Navigation](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/new-navigation-and-a-new-look-for-confluence-881536766.html) but you can try [Refined Theme for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.refinedwiki.confluence.cloud.refinedtheme/cloud/overview) if you want to try customizing your own theme.

Please be advised that if you do opt out of the new UI now, this is a temporary opt-out, as it will be pushed to Cloud instances permanently in the near future.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon

comments: author: Shannon S
body: Hi Joel,

As a follow-up, I wanted to let you know that in particular the individual space custom color themes are being discontinued:

* [Custom space color schemes are going away](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/blog/2017/08/custom-space-color-schemes-are-going-away)

You will be able to continue using the 3rd party theme add-ons to customize Confluence.

Let us know if you have any trouble.

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Kimberly Cakebread
body: where is the "dislike" button? it took a long time to train engineers on color coded spaces. now they all look the same. offering me an outside vendor is not a good answer :-(


author: Shannon S
body: Hi Kimberly,

You'll be able to share your feedback with the developers via the New Look by clicking on your profile photo on the bottom left-hand corner of your Confluence instance. There will be a menu item towards the top letting you know to provide feedback.

![Screen Shot 2017-08-17 at 10.21.15 AM.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/4808iA2089D00641F5446/image-dimensions/208x212?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2017-08-17 at 10.21.15 AM.jpg")

Go ahead and provide feedback there and let us know if you have any trouble!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Kimberly Cakebread
body: Oh, I went there first. Use a third-party theme at additional cost is not cool.