Site level navigation - How do users get from an item page back to search? 🐁

[tania-pires]

We can open each search result in a different tab when clicked or add breadcrumbs to the interface. Maybe the first option is better because it allows users to have multiple tabs open and at the same time keeping the explore page available.

@AliceR @rwegener2 @necoline

[rwegener2]

My hesitation is that opening the page in a new tab is, while this may sound comical, that it will be too technically confusing. Again that sounds goofy but thinking about the user interviews I don't think that is out of the question. I also don't love the way that it separates the search results from the search experience.

What does the "breadcrumbs" idea look like?

I know that our nav bars are getting a little crazy, but can we put a "back to search" button on the item page navbar?

[tania-pires]

We can add a " ← back to explore" or "back to search results" (not sure what is the best naming for this action) link on the top of he page (this is the most common place fo this components)

[tania-pires]

Breadcrumbs would look like this:

[rwegener2]

Nice. I like breadcrumbs, but I wonder how they would work when you get to an instrument page not from explore page. (Ex. Explore > Campaign > Instrument > Campaign > ...)

I think the " ← back to explore" sounds straightforward and doable

[tania-pires]

Nice. I like breadcrumbs, but I wonder how they would work when you get to an instrument page not from explore page. (Ex. Explore > Campaign > Instrument > Campaign > ...)

That would not happen @rwegener2 because breadcrumbs only show the information architecture and not the user flow.

Breadcrumbs should display the current location in the site’s hierarchical structure, not the session history. Breadcrumbs are not intended to show the history of pages traversed during a session on the site (a la a browser’s native Back button); they are intended to show the hierarchical structure of the site. We’ve noted this for many years, but it still bears repeating; attempting to show a list of the pages a user has accessed, in order, will quickly become long and confusing, with a lot of repetition, and won’t provide any benefit for users who arrive on a deep page directly from an external link, which is one of the key uses of breadcrumbs.

nngroup

[AliceR]

I like the breadcrumb idea in general, but I think it might be difficult for our case: 1) we do no have a generic explore page, it defaults to explore > campaigns and can be changed to be explore > instruments. What happens if a user selects the explore breadcrumb? 2) we only have further subcategories for platforms currently. I don't see how Instrument: Atmospheric Composition will be reflected with the data model and structures we have.

"← back to explore" could lead back to the explore page with the category selected where we come from (i.e. on the instrument tab, when coming back from an instrument). Ideally, it would preserve the previously selected filters, but that is more complex to implement than just the back link. Adding only the "← back to explore" is a 10 min change.

[rwegener2]

Transition to Frontend

Tasks

• [ ] Add a "← back to explore" button at the top of all item pages. The back button should preserve the item type (ex. instrument page goes to explore/instruments). Focus areas are the one exception to that, which would return to the campaign tab with the focus area filter applied

Designs

• this comment above

Other Notes

Worth exploring:

Ideally, [the back button] would preserve the previously selected filters, but that is more complex to implement than just the back link