Trying to figure out the beset Web interface for your Website must be frustrating at times. With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to look at the benefits of a well done Breadcrumb navigation.

Breadcrumb navigation shows the user’s path to their current location.

Data below is from 75 leading e-commerce sites, collected in May, 2002. [sites examined]

Frequency of Breadcrumbs

45% of pages included breadcrumb navigation.

Breadcrumb navigation was expected to be a global characteristic—that is, a site would either provide breadcrumb navigation on its pages or not. However, breadcrumbs would occasionally be present on some, but not all, pages along the sample path. This inconsistency appeared to be due to incomplete updating of a site, some pages apparently having a more recent design than others. [Read the rest]