Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage
The term “breadcrumb” derives its name from the Grimm’s fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Hansel left a trail of breadcrumbs through the woods as a strategy to find his way back home. Since today’s internet user often has a need to navigate back through a website path, the cyber-version “breadcrumb trail” was named1.

There are three different types of breadcrumbs represented in websites – path, attribute, and location…

In general, the breadcrumb trail serves two purposes: 1) it provides information to users as to where they are located within the site, and 2) it offers shortcut links for users to “jump” to previously viewed pages without using the Back button, other navigation bars, or typing in a keyword search. Breadcrumb trails give location information and links in a backward linear manner; whereas, navigation methods, such as search fields or horizontal/vertical navigation bars, serve to retrieve information for the user in a forward-seeking approach. As suggested by Marchionini (1995), systems that support navigation by both browsing and analytical strategies are most beneficial to users since tactics associated with both types of strategies are normally used. According to Steven Krug (2000), breadcrumb trails are most valuable as an accessory to a site’s navigational scheme and are optimally located at the top of a web page in a smaller font.

There has been speculation that a breadcrumb trail also aids the user’s “mental model” of the site’s layout to reduce disorientation within the site (Bernard, 2003); however, we have not found research to validate this assumption. It would seem logical, however, that a constant visualization of the path to the user’s current location would increase their awareness and knowledge of the site structure. Toms (2000) suggests that users need both a stable orienting device, such as a menu, to facilitate pathways through the site, as well as a system that supports scanning to smooth the progress of the search. Research has reported that breadcrumb navigation improves measures of site efficiency (Maldonado & Resnick, 2002; Bowler, Ng & Schwartz, 2001). Our earlier study, however, found limited use of breadcrumb trails as a navigational tool and no differences in site efficiency for two online sites, OfficeMax and Google Directory (Lida, et al. 2003).…

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/52/breadcrumb.htm