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When you use it you'll see why breadcrumbs are inferior. Breadcrumbs don't give you a sense of place. Breadcrumbs aren't natural. It sounds like a subtle thing, but once you use it you'll see the difference. Also, sheets have a much larger click target which makes them a lot easier and faster to use.
The only purpose of breadcrumbs is to provide a sense of place. It literally tells you where you are and how you got there. And where you can easily navigate back to. In terms of being natural, they definitely don't map to a physical analogy like your sheets do. But that's a good thing to me. edit: I agree with the click target benefit. Although I think you could do some useful things design wise with breadcrumbs to…
Re: Basecamp Next: UI Preview
#21If you want to get semantic, breadcrumbs don't really give you a "sense" of place, they just tell you where you've come from. These sheets actually make you feel how many levels deep you are—without having to parse a string.