Displaying active menu item when a page is categorized under more than one main level item

Question

Restructuring a publishing sites navigation which uses broad level interests grouping as 2nd level navigation. For example, we can have the following:

• Top Stories
  • Social design
  • Tech
  • African design
  • Etc..
• Events
• Designer Directory

The problem is an article may be categorized under both African Design and Tech with the url structure that currently is www.site.com/articles/category/title.

Any suggestions on how to display a users current location in the menu bar when the page the user is on is in 2 categories

Answer 1

As a navigation aide, the menu bar (or breadcrumb) must reflect the category the user employed to locate the article. If an article is in more than one category then it just means that it is accessible in multiple ways. There is no problem with an article possibly having multiple breadcrumbs.

What the url reflects is an implementation detail and is irrelevant from a UX perspective.