Why build a trail when all you need is a click?

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It's my guess that every culture has its own metaphor for the breadcrumb trail. Anyone who has grown up in a Western European culture probably immediately thinks of Hansel and Gretel, but there must be additional folktales, from other cultures, that use other materials for the same purpose. In Hebrew we have, of course, Nakhum Gutman's The Orange Peel Path - one of the first books that I succeeded in reading in Hebrew, and still, many years later, a favorite of mine.

A number of studies have been conducted that have tried to determine whether breadcrumb trails are actually helpful navigational aids. One of these can be found here. I've only found one clear reference in Hebrew to this sort of navigational aid as an orange peel path.

But helpful as they may be, paths of this sort seem to perhaps run counter to the logic (there's that word again) of hypertext. Do we really need a path? Immediacy can often be the best route, as in Dorothy clicking her heels three times and saying "there's no place like home". Interestingly, though to me it's an obvious association, I don't think I've ever come across a .jpeg of red shoes used as an icon for home.

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Go to: No need to click for an example, or
Go to: Dr. Hierarchy and Mr. Associative