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Website Navigation Tool: The Breadcrumb Trail
We have thus far published several articles about necessary elements of any website, including error pages and site maps. Another significant aspect of a site is its navigation tool. Users can easily be lost in a site with multiple pages. Thus, intuitive navigation is a necessity. A breadcrumb trail is a type of navigation tool that is commonly used. The breadcrumb trail gets its name from the popular story of Hansel and Gretel, two young children who wander into a forest dropping a trail of breadcrumbs behind them so they can follow it to find their way out and back home. In the context of a website, however, a breadcrumb trail is a line of linked text that briefly states what page the user is viewing and where that page falls in the site's hierarchy. Each point in the trail is linked directly to that page for navigational ease. An example of a breadcrumb trail is: Homepage > Press Center > 2004. This particular trail indicates that the user is on the press center page for 2004. It is likely that the organization's press releases from 2004 appear on this page. A breadcrumb trail is especially useful if a visitor finds a page on your website from a search engine. In this case, the trail would provide the visitor with information as to where that particular page is located in relation to the other pages on the site. If you need assistance with organizing your site's navigation, contact Rick Christ at mailto:Rick@npadvisors.com. January 2004 | |
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