[Sigia-l] Breadcrumbs - case study (maybe OT)

[Beau Lebens]

//  From a user perspective you don't care...the directory could be an
//  artificially overlaid structure where all files are links and the actual
//  file and / or data is in a database - there can even be
//  distinct advantages
//  to this approach.

i absolutely agree - thus the tremendous success of hyperlinks (and the
basis of the project i was actually talking about - called 'hypertext file
system' :)

//  - Why do you want them to be there as designer?
//  What other content is linked to this content heirachically or
//  otherwise that
//  a breadcrumb could be used for linking to? What do you want to
//  lead users
//  into...? For me, Amazon does this better with it's book suggestions than
//  breadcrumbs as these are far more focussed.

i would say that the book suggestions are probably more to do with the
collective navigation/purchasing patterns of users, rather than any sort of
direct classification, but I agree for sure that it is a more valuable
navigation tool in this case anyway.

//  - What does your user want to get out of them?
//  Do they want to see where they are? Look at related topics?

this one is an important point - and one that leads to other possibilities.
for example, if you are providing some 'See Also' links somewhere else on
your page, then your 'breadcrumbs' shouldn't need to reproduce this
information. if you *aren't*, then maybe it's a good thing to work into
them?

//  The more interesting part of the discussion has been around
//  how, when and
//  where to use them and what types of breadcrumbs might be considered.

I definitely agree with this bit!

maybe we need to define a few of the types of breadcrumbs (if people can
tolerate that misleading, if not quasi-standard term)

here's a few we have discussed already

 - path/trail breadcrumbs (indicating the path the user *did* take)

 - hierarchy breadcrumbs (your own, enforced path that they *should* have
followed)

 - related breadcrumbs (showing all classifications that this page *could*
be in)

any more out there?

Beau