Breadcrumbs
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I expect very few people will understand what "breadcrumbs" means if you use that word to label them. I certainly remember I had no idea what it meant, even after I'd been making websites for a while. 
Something like You are here or Your location would probably be more recognisable (the former being common on tourist maps). A row of links delimited by greater-than signs looks (and reads) much the same as breadcrumbs on other sites, so labelling them might not always be necessary?
For providing an alternative navigation mechanism, I reckon they are always worth including.
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| For providing an alternative navigation mechanism, I reckon they are always worth including. |
Definitely. I think one of the guys behind clickdensity told me that they had found breadcrumb trails are quite heavily used.
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Jim O'Donnell
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| Something like You are here or Your location would probably be more recognisable (the former being common on tourist maps). |
I agree it needs something...
| Cerbera wrote: |
| A row of links delimited by greater-than signs looks (and reads) much the same as breadcrumbs on other sites, so labeling them might not always be necessary? |
A blind person can not visualize the whole breadCrumbs like you and I can becuase they are looking through a "pinhole" and only after hearing "greater than" can they presume it is breadCrumbs but can not be 100% sure.
It is not the end of the world but it is inadequate not to label them IMO. Even a 1 pixel image with ALT attribute saying "breadCrumbs" or better "You are here" (suggested by Cerbera).
You are here: home > books > previews > Starting with A > ASP for Dummies
You are here: home, books, previews, Starting with A, ASP for Dummies
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| Something like You are here or Your location would probably be more recognisable |
That's the logic that I've been working to. I suppose it comes under 'use the clearest, simplest language possible' (or whatever the exact quote is).
Cheers
KL
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| Quote: |
| I think one of the guys behind clickdensity told me that they had found breadcrumb trails are quite heavily used. |
In all the usability testing I've done I have never observed a user make use of them for any purpose (i.e. navigation or orientation), and the research I have read tends to support my observations.
I can only conclude that breadcrumbs are a complete waste of time for most web sites. Most people are not all that interested in your site hierarchy, and most (all) browsers have history functions already. (That covers the two flavours of breadcumb I know of).
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At Calthorpe, several of the parents have commented that they use the breadcrumbs. Of course, they don't know they are called "breadcrumbs" so they pointed out the links they meant on a nearby PC.
Personally, I use them all the time for orientation on the websites which have them. I regularly use them for navigation on GTA Forums. I find them very useful. I guess by some statistical miracle you've managed to never meet any of us breadcrumb users?
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Whilst never having yet implemented breadcrumbs myself (though I do use them sometimes, particularly on e-stores), for better or worse, I'd say that the use of > has become the de facto convention, at least as far as the non-list approach goes.
Imho, commas simply don't impart the sense of hierarchy that the > symbol does.
(This may be partly due to being a Mac user which uses right-facing triangle icons within its directory lists).
I like the idea of using a list, ordered or otherwise, but I feel that using a single list is kinda failing to take advantage of the opportunity to impart a sense of hierarchy. (I'm not convinced that the orderliness of a single, ordered list actually communicates that the order is hierarchical, rather than merely sequential. I feel the real value of breadcrumbs is in communicating to users their location in relation to the structure and, perhaps more importantly, the hierarchy of the site. I'm not sure that approaches such as those used on Patrick's Salford Uni site really achieve that in the most effective way.)
This is something which could possibly be better reflected through the use of nested lists. However, this approach might bring up other usability issues due to their increased complexity, assuming the increased complexity of nested lists may be more than a minor inconvenience to those using AT.
Is anyone able to clarify to me the usability impact of nested lists for AT users? (tia)
As regarding the question of "greater than"…
Would it not be a possible solution to use something like this…?
| Code: |
| <abbr title="Something more descriptive than 'greater than'">></abbr> |
The > symbol is, after all, being used as an abbreviation of sorts, so I'd say that there's a practical as well as semantic argument to be made in favour of marking up breadcrumb dividers in this way.
Just a thought.
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| terrence wood wrote: | ||
|
Then get yourself to San Francisco in April.
They're giving a talk on some of their findings at Museums and the Web.
| terrence wood wrote: |
| I can only conclude that breadcrumbs are a complete waste of time for most web sites. Most people are not all that interested in your site hierarchy, and most (all) browsers have history functions already. (That covers the two flavours of breadcumb I know of). |
Most of our visitors enter the site on pages like one of the museum fact files. I assume they use the breadcrumb trail at that point to orient themselves, since the browser history will simply go back to whichever search engine they've arrived from. Of course, heat maps won't tell us why they're using the trail, only whether or not it gets a lot of clicks.
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Jim O'Donnell
work: Royal Observatory Greenwich
play: eatyourgreens
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I personally have always used the > sign, simple becuase i feel it is the best representation. unfortunantly, as with a lot of things this is subjective.
| Quote: |
| The > symbol is, after all, being used as an abbreviation of sorts |
You are right, but woudnt this just at the complexity and annoyance of having something repeatedly read out. If the W3C could give us a standard symbol that sat nicely inbetween breadcrumb links and both graphically in its rendering made sence and when read out by the screen reader made 100% sence then we would be laughing, but becuase we havnt i do believe the > is the best option that we have.
Rob
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