
Navigation is one of the most important elements of a website. Without proper navigation, a user can get lost within a website, with no idea how to get back to where they started or where to go next.
One navigational aid that designers commonly implement to improve wayfinding is breadcrumb navigation.
Breadcrumbs consist of hierarchical links showing where a user is located within the sitemap.
For example, if you were on a website’s team page, the breadcrumb navigation might look something like this:
Home > About Us > Meet the Team
It would include links to the parent pages back to the homepage.
In addition to location-based breadcrumbs, some sites implement attribute-based breadcrumbs as well. This is commonly found on e-commerce websites, where a user might be looking at products under various category levels. Attribute-based breadcrumb navigation might look like this:
All Furniture > Office > Desks > Corner Desks
The path is based on the specific attributes the user has selected to narrow down their results.