I agree with most of the comments in response to this query but
thought I would clarify one part of what Steve said, namely that:
"breadcrumbs ... represent the content pathway the user followed to
reach their current page".
I misread this sentence initially and so others may too. I thought
Steve was saying that breadcrumbs represent the pathway of pages the
user moved through to get to their current page. But what I think
he's actually saying is that they represent the location of the
current page within the site hierarchy. This latter type of crumb is
useful because it gives you a sense of context; the former type of
crumb is unnecessary because you have the "back" button.
Cheers
Jessica Enders
Director
Formulate Information Design
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http://formulate.com.au
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Phone: (02) 6116 8765
Fax: (02) 8456 5916
PO Box 5108
Braddon ACT 2612
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On 06/06/2008, at 6:58 PM, Steve Baty wrote:
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.
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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
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