Unilever : Submerging trails

A stylish breadcrumb drops from view.

The Site

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch food and personal and household goods company, positions its breadcrumb trail in an out-of-the-way spot.

Unilever provides a section breadcrumb trail on all pages of its global site. The trail has both a distinctive design and positioning. It is boxed in a lightly ruled horizontal bar running the full width of the page, with elements of the trail progressively added conventionally from the left as the user moves through the section. Each step is marked off by a right-pointing chevron and can be clicked on to access it; headings are in grey type, which turns to white on green when rolled over.

The breadcrumb bar is the first element in a set of links and download tools positioned beneath the text at the foot of pages. In most cases this becomes visible only with scrolling. The path is mirrored by highlighting in the left-hand navigation, where the top-level section headings show only on rollover of a chevron.

The Takeaway

Unilever’s dressing of its breadcrumb trail as a navigation bar is a stylish and intelligent variation on the norm for such features. It looks fresh and different, but is also instantly recognisable for what it is. The positioning of the bar below page content is another matter altogether.

Breadcrumbs are conventionally spread out at the top of pages between the main navigation and page content, which means this is where users will expect to find one – and, by extension, presume there is no trail if they don’t see one there. It’s not obvious what advantage Unilever is giving users by abandoning this convention and submerging the trail. Nor, indeed, what purpose it serves there.

First published on 14 May, 2009