Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation aid that helps users easily understand the relation between their location on a page (like a course page) and higher level pages (perspective students page, for instance). The term is borrowed from the tale of Hansel and Gretel where the kids drop a trail of breadcrumbs to trace their way back.听All that breadcrumbs do is make it easier for users to move around the site, assuming its content and overall structure make sense. That's sufficient contribution for something that takes up only one line in the design.
Despite their secondary status,听听听is helpful听for a few simple reasons:
- Breadcrumbs show people their听current location听relative to the main menu, helping them understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site.
- Breadcrumbs afford听one-click access to higher site levels听and help users who come to a page from a launding page or another site or a search page.
- Breadcrumbs听never cause problems in user testing: people might overlook this small design element, but they never misinterpret breadcrumb trails or have trouble operating them.
- Breadcrumbs听take up very little space听on the page.
There is an acceptable use case for not using breadcrumb navigation.听听If your site contains only a few pages, without any levels of menu hierarchy, disabling the breadcrumbs navigation could make the site look a little cleaner.
But for all other sites we recommend keeping the听breadcrumb navigation enabled. It will improve your site's听usability.
