Bread Crumbs

One of the WebsitePatterns which aims to show the user where in a Web site they currently are. Typically found in the site's header, it tends to look something like this:

Root > Foo > Bar > Page

Where each element except the last is a hyperlink, allowing easy "upwards" movement in a site.

Note that a page's breadcrumbs are static. They show users where the page is in a site, not where the user has been. (The pixelpolitics link below claims the opposite.)

Related topics:

• VisibleContext
• TreeStructure
• ConsistentLook
• http://keith.instone.org/breadcrumbs/
• http://pixelpolitics.com/navigation.html [BrokenLink, but archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20020905232908/http://pixelpolitics.com/navigation.html]

Examples:

• http://useit.com/

The solution to the static breadcrumb problem is the use of cookie-based breadcrumbs. Not ideal, perhaps, but if you advise the visitor why you are using cookies he'll probably let you set them. Make sure breadcrumb cookies are per-session and have a short life span.