How to Choose Between Navbar and Breadcrumbs in Web Design?
Last Updated :
14 May, 2024
A beautiful website is one that consists of a complete set of instructions to be able to navigate effortlessly through every page of the website. This is the task that is performed by a navigation bar, a hamburger menu, or breadcrumbs in web design.
Navbar
A navigation bar consists of links through which the user can navigate to access different pages of the website. It mostly contains sections such as About Us, Contact Us, FAQs, etc. In mobile phones, to make the website responsive this navbar is converted into a hamburger menu which is a drop-down list to access all the elements. A navigation bar looks like a series of hyperlinks that when clicked navigate the user to different parts of the site. It is situated at the top of every page and many times, it’s also given the position property sticky so as to be accessible around any corner of the site. Following is the code by which you can create a navigation bar.
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>CSS : Navigation Bar</title>
<style>
ul {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
list-style: none;
padding: 4px;
}
.nav-bar ul li {
margin: 0px 15px;
padding: 0px 5px;
font-size: 22px;
font-weight: bold;
font-family: cursive;
}
.nav-bar ul li a {
color: navy;
text-decoration: none;
}
.nav-bar li a::after {
content: '';
display: block;
height: 4px;
width: 0;
background: #b60000;
transition: all .5s;
}
.nav-bar li a:hover::after {
width: 100%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="nav-bar">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact Us</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
<li><a href="#">FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Output:
Navigation Bar
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation aid provided at the top of the web page that helps in easing the accessibility to all the pages at once. It is a kind of hierarchy where all the web pages are mentioned in a serial order. It makes navigation easier for both parent as well as children pages. Much similar to navigation bar, however, navbar holds properties regarding the parent web page only. But breadcrumbs consist of all the possible web pages in either ascending or descending order that describe in a whole as what the website consists of. Following is the code by which you can create breadcrumbs :
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>CSS : BreadCrumbs</title>
<style>
ul {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
list-style: none;
padding: 4px;
}
.breadcrumbs ul li {
padding: 0px 5px;
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: bold;
font-family: cursive;
}
.breadcrumbs ul li a {
color: navy;
text-decoration: none;
}
.breadcrumbs ul li a:hover {
color: #2F8D46;
}
.breadcrumbs li:first-child::before {
content: '<-';
border-radius: 50%;
cursor: pointer;
margin-right: 8px;
padding: 2px 4px;
background: #250074;
color: white;
}
.breadcrumbs li:last-child::after {
content: '->';
border-radius: 50%;
cursor: pointer;
margin-left: 8px;
padding: 2px 4px;
background: #250074;
color: white;
}
.breadcrumbs li:not(:last-child, :first-child)::after {
margin: 0 .25rem;
content: ">";
font-size: 22px;
}
.breadcrumbs li:first-child,
.breadcrumbs li:last-child {
margin: 30px 40px;
padding: 28px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="breadcrumbs">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Back to Home Page</a></li>
<li><a href="#">GeeksForGeeks</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Data Structures & Algorithms</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Interview Questions</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Proceed Forwards</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Output:
.webp)
Breadcrumbs
Key Differences Between Navbar and Breadcrumbs
Navbar
| Breadcrumbs
|
|---|
Primary navigation aid
| Secondary navigation aid
|
Helps access main sections of the website
| Helps navigate through the entire website
|
Provide particular links for web pages
| Provide links in a hierarchical format
|
Used in almost every website
| Used in websites holding information serial wise
|
How and when to choose between Navbar and Breadcrumbs?
Considering the structure one wishes for his or her web page, it solely depends on the type of website. If the website is a normal product or content website, then a navbar would suffice showing the sections such as Home page, About Us, Contact Us etc. But when creating an educational website which would want to navigate through deeper sections of a particular topic, breadcrumbs comes into optimal usage as they help form the tree in a hierarchical structure that takes us back and forwards in a serial order.
Another way to choose between navbar and breadcrumbs is to check for responsiveness. Navbars are set to an attribute of position sticky in HTML pages and always remain at the top. For mobile screens, a navbar is transformed into a hamburger menu that works as a drop down list. However in case of breadcrumbs, responsiveness is not an issue as it involves simply creating a linear structure where in all the contents are stored. Moreover they are not stuck at the top of the page and remain at a position where the user has to scroll and access it. For smaller screens the breadcrumbs structure is handy to use.
To sum up it is highly recommended sometimes to use both navbar as well as breadcrumbs. This is because it provides a comprehensive and complete solution. The user wishes to navigate between the main sections, or move to the content just next to what it is reading, all come in handy when both are used together. This enhances user experience and makes it easier to reach to the specified content in lesser amount of time.
Conclusion
Both navigation bar and breadcrumbs have their own benefits. While designing a website on a larger scale which is required to be feasible for both laptop and mobile applications, we tend to use navigation bar as on mobile screens such bars can be converted into a hamburger menu, or a drop down list to access the items. But when we are creating a website which consists of web pages in a hierarchical order, breadcrumbs are preferred as they improve the findability of web pages quicker and help in going back to the parent page at one click, and proceeding further on another. It completely depends on the website maker as in what it would want to use, a navbar which is easy and organised or a breadcrumbs structure that creates a serial order saving time in navigation.
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