We are currently building a community site (hobby-project) and are having some issues with some ux-patterns.
Our site has a header with some navigation, left sidebar used for filters or other stuff (depending on the page you're viewing) and a main content zone.
Let's say you search for a profile. - Click on 'Search' in the header - Set your preferences - All matching profiles are displayed in the main content area as 'thumbs' (profilecards as we call them). - Clicking on a profile makes your maincontent to display full details. It has a link to get back to the search results.
Now, this presents two levels of navigation in the main content area. If we want to start a conversation (chat-style) or view a photo album of the profile, what would be the best way to display it?
- Main content (RED), expand the 'breadcrumb' navigation to het back to the profile-details.
- Present a photo-album in a popup (FB-style), same for a chat-window.