Breadcrumbs User Interview Notes
pglevy edited this page May 7, 2020
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These interviews were conducted in April and May of 2020 as part of the Breadcrumbs Research Plan.
- Refers to existing/related department sites for guidance on approach (e.g., USDA).
- Refers to expert guidance on how to use (e.g., including current page in breadcrumbs).
- On current project, considering removing breadcrumbs for two reasons:
- Implementation difficulty related to rendering breadcrumbs in the intended way using Drupal.
- Redundancy of breadcrumbs has navigational aid when both main navigation and section navigation are available.
- User testing not currently planned to see whether inclusion of breadcrumbs would be beneficial or not.
- For small screen, options are too shorten or eliminate.
- For shortening, considered truncated entire breadcrumb text (not just current page).,
- For separator, feels it's a stylistic decision what to use.
- Likes pipe because "cleaner".
- Slash "looks too much like a link"(?)
- Most common separators:
- Dot, colon, slash, double-slash
Initial chat convo:
- "I wanted them to appear in the Resources section so you could get around a very shallow site architecture (didnt feel like a big ole nav was necessary)."
- "We talked about it but they never would have worked on the plan portal part - page titles are waaay too long and sections too deep."
- "There was also discussion around whether to include the current page title in the breadcrumb list - it could look repetitive (having page title in breadcrumb list and then again, larger as the page title) unless styled nicely."
Interview:
- In one example, used in lieu of main nav: "didn’t want to design big nav, wanted something unobtrusive"
- low priority on page
- client thought repeated page felt redundant
- only added value on third level
- what if there was longer content? maybe don’t need them on mobile?
- references for inspiration
- pet peeve: space between each one
- want it to be consistent, spacing
- like having options (for levels of spacing)
- "never more close than this” (least amount of space)
- kind of important when dealing with audience of certain age... they like familiarity... been around for quite some time
- sometimes can be overwhelming, more time to process side menu
- easy way, kind of like a back button
- gets difficult on mobile... small links (have to be precise where you click)
- "if your breadcrumbs are difficult for your developer to build, maybe you’re being a little unreasonable"
- "such a small part of the design, most effort shouldn’t go there"
- Breadcrumbs "helps you understand where you are within pages."
- On shortening: "tricky, what are we giving them before ellipsis to tell them where they are at."
- mentioned Google Developer Docs as example, but actually a confusing example.
- mismatch between hierarchical location and breadcrumb content.
- "feel like it set up based on path how you got there" but not sure
- likes Amazon example because "gives context for the current page as well."
- "sometimes want to go back one section"
- most CMSes have their own breadcrumb component
- In Drupal, "if you don’t get content structure correctly, that’s where developers will have a hard time."
- "how many levels do we want to display?... if they go one level up, start shrinking... what are we going to be hiding?... always good to leave parent element showing (even on small screen)."
- would like to see: more dynamic, ability to show different things at different breakpoints.
- Likes Natural History Museum example because "their content followed a true site map."
- "When you have side menu and breadcrumb, doesn’t make sense to have both."
- On FSIS, "Recalls content can show in a couple different places... can have two parents."
- example: news & events might fall under resources
- more common use case, follows URL structure
- Two options for what to do: either follow URL structure (always accurate) or follow site map structure
- Drupal out of the box follows site structure, not URL structure
- Purpose of breadcrumbs: "hit back button but know where going before they hit the back button"
- other purpose: parent content level
- Shortening priority:
- wrapping
- first hide current
- then go to just parent
- then just home
- for long titles, recommends a shorter sub-title
- FSIS has terrible breadcrumb structure because of terrible structure of site.
- Not meaningful, too heavy, too much
- You start to see there's no logic to this.
- Seems to follow the path you took to get there.
- If they're structured well, you don't notice them.
- You definitely notice it when you're on a site that isn't well-structured.
- There has been a movement away from breadcrumbs. I think they are useful.
- Highly useful on sites with deep hierarchy, but if you can still simplify BC structure, it's better. Follow architecture without being as dense.
- I think that they generally are useful. Not so much that you don't need them, more that you don't notice them.
- You might use them, but when you're looking for them, you don't know where you are.
- You're looking at skirts, but I really want to go back to this or that. (looking at before)
- Simpler than hitting the back button at the top.
- Tells you where you are in the hierarchy of the site.
- Take you back to results, easily take you back a page.
- When landing on page inside site, breadcrumbs really useful then.
- Ex. if inspector at FSIS, need a specific reg, then want to see other recent regs.
- number of product sites use both approaches (hierarchy and path)
- seeing enough hints, feel anchored
- what's needed (for guidance): when how these different structures would be meaningful
- when not to use? (main nav and side nav) if well-structured maybe more where you came from instead of where you are
- "you've viewed this thing"
- where I'm leaning, not something I think is a must-have, but have to be pretty well-convinced about the rest of your architecture if you're not going to use them.
- too many clients don't invest in that; resistance to that level of validation to see how things are working
- you have to have a lot of confidence in your architecture (to not use them)
- I find them useful myself, but if everything if going well, I don't notice them.
- if no section nav, breadcrumbs can work better (less space)