Gday,
Am I correct in understanding that an ordered list is the best way of
marking up a breadcrumb system that shows where a user has been ?
And that an unordered list is appropriate for a breadcrumb (for the lack of
a more appropriate term) system that shows a users' position in relation to
site structure ?
What are peoples opinions on this ? Are there better/more correct ways of doing this ?
Which breadcrumb system is preferable in terms of accessability ?
My educated guess would be that the common single line with ' > ' between the links, and the last item being the current page's title in plain text is preferable. I have several reasons for this:
- In braille, this would turn up as a single (though sometimes word-wrapped) line, instead of a long list. Real estate is extremely rare in braille readers, so fitting all links in a breadcrumb trail on one line improves navigation for blind people using these devices. (Note that I assume lists are presented in a 'one item per line' fashion, which I'm not sure of.) Jaws (and other screenreaders) typically have an option to skip headings and lists alike, so preceding the one-line breadcrumb with an appropriate (CSS-hidden) heading would suffice to give both methods similar accessibility for screen reading.
- In my opinion a breadcrumb is about revealing hierarchy and not about step-to-step guidance. Hierarchy shows more from the ' > ' than from the steps in an ordered list.
- A (minor?) flaw in the cookbook analogy is that usually there are more ways to arrive at a page (sitemap, search, Google result link, etc). Is the breadcrumb different in these instances? Any given page should have only one place in site hierarchy, so showing hierarchy is more consistent than showing navigational steps.
- There's a difference in finding a way _to_ a destination, and finding your way _back from_ that destination. Cookbook steps are fantastic for the former: route descriptions, wizards, checkout processes. A single-line breadcrumb is for the latter: which part of the site am I on now?
- The single line breadcrumb is widely used and thus sets a Nielsen-style usability standard that many vision-impaired web surfers will be accustomed to.
I would argue that marking up a breadcrumb trail as a list is more a result of the ul&ol frenzy currently breezing through the webstandards community than a result of solid usability and accessibility arguments or testing. Now, I cannot back up all arguments above with the numbers, so I'm no pope either. But introducing yet another markup for breadcrumbs begs to confuse instead of clarify things, imho.
Jeroen
-- vizi fotografie & grafisch ontwerp - http://www.vizi.nl/
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