I was talking to a client the other day and they asked about one of our recommendations. We mentioned that they might want to add some breadcrumbs to the site to improve navigation and usability. They had no idea what I was talking about. I realized that this may be one of those words we industry insiders use that has no meaning to most other people. For that reason I thought a brief tutorial on breadcrumbs would be in order.
Breadcrumbs are a nice little addition to a website that largely goes ignored but can be a significant help to those that like to use them. They make both usability and navigation easier. The primary purpose of breadcrumbs is to provide a visual indicator to your visitor where they are in the site and give them an easy link “back” to higher up categories.