Lib, Breadcrumbs fall into that category of IA component that hurts no-one, and helps some people some of the time, which generally makes them worthwhile. However, breadcrumbs should serve a specific purpose, that being: to represent the content pathway the user followed to reach their current page. If your site (overall) is structured the same way as your organisation, then the breadcrumbs you've described serve their purpose (although the convention is that each node in the breadcrumb be a link, other than the current page).
>From what I can see, however, the intent of this device is not to act as a breadcrumb trail in the navigational sense, but is, in fact, a method for communicating organisational structure. That should be a different conversation, and its one that is likely going to come down to 'Company convention dictates' - end of discussion. I have some concerns about the potential for confusing users who would visually associate this device with a navigational mechanism, so an alternate visual treatment (especially the choice of the > delimiter) might be in order. Otherwise, the general consensus amongst the IA community is that breadcrumbs don't hurt, and they might help. Regards Steve 2008/6/6 libwebdev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Hi folks, > > My organisation manages around 7000+ pages for 100s of departments, > using a CMS. Mine is the only department outside the CMS, just because > we can. > > We have been persuaded (read: bullied) to redesign our header to > exactly match that of the parent organisation. I have no problem with > that per se, but theirs includes breadcrumbs, and we don't want 'em. > > I'm wondering what the consensus is here on their usefulness. I've > always been under the impression that the purpose of breadcrumbs was > to indicate to the user where they had been. However, the ones we are > being urged to implement do no such thing; they simply display our > organisational structure. This means that on every one of our 200-odd > pages, the breadcrumbs will appear like so (we are the library): > > Parent Org > Clinical Services > Library > Current page > > The only thing that's going to change is the current page. To me, > that's not a breadcrumb trail at all. > > Am I wrong in my thinking? Is this a common usage? How does this > benefit the user at all? > > I'm questioning it because of usability issues, which is how I tie it > in with web standards. If this is considered off-topic, I apologise, > and replies should come directly to me rather than the list. > > thanks, > lib. > > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ******************************************************************* > > -- ---------------------------------------------- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
