Breadcrumbs when there are multiple paths user can take to same page
I was tasked with improving the confusing breadcrumbs on a website I'm working on. They are evaluating if they want to keep or remove breadcrumbs.
The problem: Users can navigate to certain pages via a variety of methods. The hierarchy of the website isn't very clear or defined.
For example, users can search for courses they want to take:
Home > Courses > Cooking 101 > Chapter 1: The basics of boiling water
They can bookmark that course to access it from their learning dashboard:
Home > Dashboard
The confusion stems from the experience the user will have if they access the course from their Dashboard. From the Dashboard, they can click into their course "Cooking 101" and the breadcrumbs will change from
Home > Dashboard
to
Home > Courses > Cooking 101
If the user wants to get back to their dashboard from the course they're on, there's no immediate link to get there.
More confusion It gets even murkier with weird things like mini projects. Say, for example, there's a project on how well you learned to boil that water.
Home > Courses > Cooking 101 > Project: Boil some water
This project can be associated with multiple courses, such as Baking 101.
Home > Courses > Cooking 101 > Project: Boil some water
Home > Courses > Baking 101 > Project: Boil some water
Therefore, when you visit the page for "Project: Boil some water" from any entry point the breadcrumb currently switches to:
Home > Project > Project: Boil some water
This is really confusing to me and not intuitive.
I'm not sure if this is a horrifically egregious issue, but it definitely has the feeling of jumping around the application. This is a simple example and there are loads of entry points into other parts of the website. Your thoughts?