The term “breadcrumb” comes from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale in which the children drop breadcrumbs to form a trail back to their home. Just like in the tale, breadcrumbs in real-world applications offer users a way to trace the path back to their original landing point.
The breadcrumb trail serves two purposes:
- provides information to users as to where they are located within the site
- 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
Breadcrumbs 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.
Traditional Breadcrumbs
Flickr Preview
The traditional Nautilus breadcrumb is a button. The current location is indicated by a depressed button and the button title is displayed in a bold font.
Impression Breadcrumbs
Flickr Preview
The Impression themes ( and others ) use a lighter design approach to breadcrumbs. The trail consists of text hot links separated by arrows, When the mouse hovers above the link the text changes color to either Impression orange or Night Impression aubergine.
Impression Breadcrumb Prelight
Flickr Preview
File Dialogs
In addition to Nautilus, breadcrumb trails persist to other dialogs such as “Open File”.
Flickr Preview
The text hot links blend well with other elements on the form and satisfies the design requirements stated above.
Providing consistency with Nautilus, the prelight event changes the text color to either Impression orange or Night Impression aubergine.
Another interesting action to the prelight event is the right arrow changes direction bringing additional focus to the breadcrumb.
 |
Download Impression GTK themes for Maverick: Ubuntu Wiki |
 |
View (Lucid): Flickr Slide show |