New layout is absolutely terrible.

Yep, you're not alone. There's been a lot of posts about this, but unfortunately there's no official message from Zendesk, except on one where they both post that it was fixed and that anyone still complaining needs to post a new feedback post about it. *sigh*. 

First here, where it was marked completed, despite the comments that this wasn't accurate,  and then it was locked: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4409217488794-Agent-Workspace-Open-at-top-of-latest-comment

Again here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4408860670106-Customize-Agent-Workspace

and here: 
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4581605776154-Ticket-Flow-and-Reply-Box-Location-in-Agent-Workspace

And here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4727172601370-New-Agent-Workspace-and-impact-on-readability-and-health-posture-neck-issues-

and here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4846694912026-Four-Key-Changes-that-Need-to-be-Reverted-Back

and finally here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4409222724122-Agent-Workspace-Issues
A Zendesk employee posted that "all the issues fixed", but then in the thread, when people pointed out that nothing has changed, the employee asked people to make new tickets about the very same problems instead. 

I appreciate the references and I am concerned there are so many - all with no resolution.  Hopefully they won't actually enforce the "upgrade" requirement for the new interface and we can continue using the current view with the reply box on top and the correct sorting.  If they do enforce the update, we may need to look elsewhere because they don't seem to be addressing the issue at all based on the links you provided.

I've been such a huge fan of ZenDesk for years. It's always done exactly what I wanted. Things were easy to use and just made sense. This change throws so much of that away. I have no idea what these changes are trying to accomplish, but it's just made things much harder to use.

I have to agree with OP. The new layout may work with Slack type chat sessions, but not in Zendesk tickets. The problem increases when using Zendesk with small laptop. If there is long message you can only see the end of it, which was much better before the update when you could see the beginning of the message.

At least change the system the way that you can use the old layout if new one doesn't suite your working methods.

This comments order change should not be forced on the end users and should be customizable

Agree with OP

I guess until they get tired of hearing every day over and over how terrible this change is by their customers they will have to continually see the negative comments on all the various posts about the same issue. 

Howdy folks!

JJ here, Group Product Manager at Zendesk,

In regards to the feedback of the reply box now being at the bottom instead of the top of the interface, and the order of conversation messages reversed - we hear you, appreciate you being transparent on how you feel about Agent Workspace, and our product development teams are working on it.

We'd love to hear more about this feedback live. Please join us on Thursday, October 13th at 11 AM CST for our PM Roundtable on Agent Workspace. Chat with us on what is and isn’t working with recent UI changes, your product experiences, and share your feedback directly with the product team.

The link to register can be found here. Please note: If you're having trouble signing up, you may need to create a login for usergroups. Thanks!

Agreed with everyone the new UI is totally upside down.  If this does not get fixed soon i can see from the posts here a lot of us are on our way to something else. 

I have to admit. Zendesk's UI has never looked good. The interface is very polluted. The editor was never good. But now it is even worse with this new layout. I hope they reconsider this changes.

This is so bad it is almost unusable on my end. Don't fix what isn't broken. 

Also chiming in to advise Zendesk to allow us to use either layout. Go ahead and market the new layout as "Familiar with Slack/Teams and want your agents to collaborate? Try the new layout!" but please allow users to use your product as they see fit.

This isn't just "oh they'll get used to it! Bob our new Zendesk Product Manager, he comes from 55 years and IBM!" How about paying attention to your users instead? 

- The new format is very terrible on small screens or anything less than 1440p resolution. Very bad for consultants and anyone who may be on site with a work laptop

- To construct a response, you must constantly close/open the chat box AND scroll up and down the ticket. 

Even sites like reddit keep old.reddit.com for power/developer users. Yes we all know you're trying to capture more of the end-user, non-technical, e-commerce, chatbot whatever crowd, but I'd guess you have many organizational customers (who do IT support, technical ticketing) and not just chat-like interactions. 

Is there at least a way to readd  the feature that allowed you to open multiple windows by holding down command/CTRL and clicking on the tickets?

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your ongoing feedback and engagement on this thread. I wanted to provide an update after connecting with our product team regarding a release designed to address some of the suggestions shared here.

Our new layout builder configuration offers expanded customization options, allowing you to adjust conversation and ticket order to better fit your workflows.

We recognize that there are a variety of use cases mentioned in this discussion. Rest assured, we have collected all your feedback for our teams to review and consider for future improvements. As we have gathered the information we need for now, we’ll be closing this thread to further comments. This will help us focus on developing and refining this feature area as needed.

Thank you again for your valuable input. We truly appreciate your participation and support in the Zendesk Community!