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Breadcrumbs Show Users Where They Are
by Ron Kurtus (25 June 2008)
You want users of your website to be able to easily find their way around the site to examine other pages. If you have a structured website, "breadcrumbs" can be an effective aid in showing them where they are in your site. Breadcrumbs consist of a trail of links from your home page to the present page. The name was taken from the story of Hansel and Gretel, where they followed a trail of breadcrumbs to the gingerbread house.
The breadcrumb trail is typically placed near the top of the page in a horizontal list. Some websites use a vertical list. Although people seldom actually use breadcrumbs to navigate in a site, they do show the user where he or she is and often encourage the person to investigate other pages in your site.
Questions you may have include:
- What is the purpose of breadcrumbs?
- What do they look like?
- Who uses breadcrumbs?
This lesson will answer those questions. There is a mini-quiz near the end of the lesson.
Purpose of using breadcrumbs
One purpose of the breadcrumb is that it provides information to users of where they are located within the website. It allows them to easily visualize their position in the site and gives them awareness of the structure of the site.
Another purpose is that it offers shortcut links to jump to more general web pages. Breadcrumbs give location information in a backward direction, while other navigation methods, such as navigation bars move the user forward or in a parallel direction within the site.
Benefits
Benefits to the owner of the website for having breadcrumbs include better user satisfaction and perceived usability of the site at a very small investment in time or space.
Breadcrumbs can also be good for search engine optimization (SEO), because they provide solid links to other normally related parts of the website. Sometimes website navigation is done using JavaScript or Flash, which is not effective for SEO. Thus, breadcrumb links would be beneficial for SEO.
Note that using to display your breadcrumbs will negate the SEO advantage.
Case studies
About 45% of major e-commerce websites use breadcrumbs, while others use their menus to tell you where you are. Of those with breadcrumbs, about 95% used horizontal breadcrumbs and 5% used vertical.
Using breadcrumbs
Companies using breadcrumbs and examples of what they look like include:
Dell computers
You are here: USA > Home & Home Office > Desktop Computers
Cafe Press
Home > Marketplace > Product Selection > New T-Shirt
Microsoft
Microsoft uses a minimal breadcrumb: Home > Products for no matter what product you are on
About.com
You are here: About > Health > Arthritis
We also use breadcrumbs on this site, as can seen near the top of the page.
Don't use breadcrumbs
e-Commerce sites or companies not using breadcrumbs include:
- Amazon.com
- How Stuff Works
- Ford Motor Company
- Adobe
Summary
Breadcrumbs can be an effective aid in showing users where they are in your site. The breadcrumb trail is typically placed near the top of the page in a horizontal list. Although people seldom actually use breadcrumbs to navigate in a site, they increase user satisfaction. Breadcrumbs are also useful to enhance search engine optimization.
Think of the user
Resources
The following resources provide information on this subject:
Websites
Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful - From UseIt.com, usability site
Breadcrumb Navigation - From Web Design Practices
Breadcrumb Navigation - From Wikipedia
Usability tips #1: Breadcrumbs - From Kenneth Dreyer blog
Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage - From Univ of Wichita Usability News
Books
Top-rated
books on Website Design
Mini-quiz to check your understanding
If you got all three correct, you are on your way to becoming a Champion in Web Design. If you had problems, you had better look over the material again.
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Breadcrumbs Show Users Where They Are