In the heading area of every page on MDN is a breadcrumb bar showing the hierarchy of content between the site's root and the user's current location. This page discusses that bar and its features.
URL hierarchy vs breadcrumbs
The first thing to note is that the URL hierarchy and the breadcrumb hierarchy need to be decoupled. <<<NEED TO EXPLAIN WHY AND SHOW EXAMPLES>>>
Breadcrumb bar menus
Each item in the breadcrumb bar should offer a corresponding drop-down menu offering direct and quick access to its subpages. See the xBreadcrumbs jQuery plugin for an example of the kind of thing we're talking about in action.
For example:
Considerations
- How do we differentiate between going to the landing page clicked on in the breadcrumb bar and opening its menu?
- How do we make it clear there are menus for the breadcrumbs?
- Do we need to present these menus as a separate interface from the breadcrumb bar?