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Re: Location of breadcrum trail on a web page, top, bottom, or somewhere in-between?

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Aug 11, 2011 6:30AM

It seems to me that a breadcrumb would be a fairly important navigational feature of a page since it tells the user where he or she is at and provides a way to back track through the structure of the site (at least the parts they have visited.) My thought is that would seem to indicate that the information be fairly prominent on the page. It should be easy for the user to visually spot--though it wouldn't be the most prominent thing on the page.
That causes me to think that the information needs to be both visually and auditorially prominent. Whether you are looking at the page or listening to it, I would think it needs to be something that is easy enough to locate if you want or need the information.

Placing the bread crumb early in the reading order of the page would definitely be one way to give it prominence and make it easy to find. I suppose making it a header might be another way to give it prominence and make it easy to find for people using screen readers. Possibly using landmarks might also do the same.

Thanks,
Tim