[Sigia-l] Breadcrumbs - case study

[Listera]

"joe" wrote:

> I'm wondering, in specific reaction to Ziya's note about "place where" (my
> emendation), if a wayfinding path can work for a faceted architecture? That
> is, does a product page I'm looking at exists within a linear hierarchy of
> Home > Computers > Desktops > G4 > Mirrored Front or does it exist in Home >
> Graphic Design > Hardware or does it exist in Home > Web Design > something or
> other...?

As I indicated previously, there's only one path with which the user reached
the current page. You either show it or you don't. But the current page may
(and often does) have many paths to various anchor points, home page,
general product category, etc.

Often it would be confusing to show both, as it would also be disorienting
to switch between the two approaches randomly. So it's best to choose one
and stick to it.

However, you could conceivably have a consistent button (on every page)
labeled something like "Orient me" which could open a small window that can
show not only the user path but also multiple classification paths. Like so:

[1] Your recent path:
New Hardware > Desktop > Mac

[2] Related sections:
Computers > Desktops > G4 > Mirrored Front
Graphic Design > Hardware
Video > Desktops > Macintosh
 
(Labels hopefully would be better named.)

Ziya
Nullius in Verba