Historical Trails

Patryk Adaś' published a set of speculative design ideas in 2017 that hint at a more Git-like, branching way to view browsing history. Adaś argued we should move away from the concept of tabs in browsers, and instead present histories as a set of trails.

So how might we show people where they've been in more helpful and nuanced ways?

But very few interfaces do a brilliant job of the third need: showing me where I've been and how I got here. We can do it at small scales. Patterns like breadcrumbs help us navigate through website or wiki with lots of subpages, but those don't scale well beyond ~7 steps.

When I'm on a journey through a dark swamp of information, I want that same sense of reassurance that flight map gives me. I want to know:

• Where I am right now


• Where I'm going (and how long it's going to take to get there)


• Where I've been and how I got here