Navigation for multi-level site, "breadcrubs" maybe? Options

[UptonGirl]

I am working on a pages for an education site which will instruct teachers on how to set up their classes. The mockup of the site is here: Teacher Tools

I was forwarded a feedback email from on the the group developers. It reads:

I looked at her mockup and don't really see that it has full navigation. Seems to be just a different background page with some high-level menu items. I thought you wanted something that allowed you to see how you've drilled down through menus into a report and would allow easily going somewhere else without using back button or whatever we have to do now. If you imagine this page (with menu buttons on the right) with a very wide table of data, you aren't going to want buttons on the right of the table. I think the nav controls need to be above and below it. Tom mentioned tabs which can be faked with CSS.

I can certainly "fake" tabs with css - (in fact, the right hand menu is just that). Moving the navigation above, with a copy below, isn't an issue - except for the fact that I started exactly that way and ended up with TOO MUCH STUFF
But, I can deal with the size problem.

Where I'm stuck is with the part that reads:

I thought you wanted something that allowed you to see how you've drilled down through menus into a report and would allow easily going somewhere else without using back button or whatever we have to do now.

There isn't any need to use the back button here. (and yes, we've had the back button conversation before but these people hate the idea of using back, so full, easy and CLEAR navigation needs to be readily available. Also, making a link that has already been used show as a different color - or whatever text decoration works - is simple enough, but they seem to want something more than that. I have a call in to the development team but wondered if, in the meantime, anyone here has any good ideas on how to make it obvious what the user has and has not already done.

Thanks in advance for any input!

Ev

This post has been edited by UptonGirl: Jun 13 2011, 04:10 PM

[UptonGirl]

Well, I think I've come up with a solution and in hindsight it seem stupid-simple. I'm putting a css drop-down menu across the top that marks where you are by boding the menu text. I added an anchor tag, and put a "return to menu" button at the bottom on the page. Now I just have to figure out the hierarchy of the current site (which is a major chore - no wonder they handed me this and asked it be on the top of my "to do list." i can't imagine how anyone has been using what they have!) and add the links to the menu. Once the content is added to the pages (mostly forms - siiiiigh ) we'll be good to go.

This post has been edited by UptonGirl: Jun 14 2011, 09:32 PM