Advertising Usage

Last Updated 09.28.03

General Description

Some Oracle web based applications are offering the option of displaying advertisements in the UI of the product. These advertisements may be used for internet products or intranet products. An internet product like Oracle Exchange may sell advertising space to outside retailers. An intranet product may display advertisements that the corporation would like their employees to view while performing internal tasks such as expenses, or business travel planning. (As of January 2002, there are less than 5% of HTML applications at Oracle using advertising.)

It is important to recognize the impact that advertising may have on the usability of an application. Advertising may be visually distracting, and/or interfer with other UI components thus effecting the users' performance rate of completing a task. With this in mind, this guideline outlines the advertising options that are available to use for web based applications.

NOTE: Some of the graphics in this guideline are not saved with the web safe palette, or displayed with the default colors for certain components. Also, some components (namely global buttons and tabs) are not accurately represented in some of these advertising examples. See the Tabs and Navigation Guideline, Buttons (Global) Guideline for exact details.

Guideline Attributes

Spec Version # - 3.1
Spec Contributors - Betsy Nute
UI Models - ecommerce, CRM
Example Products - Oracle Sales Online
Related Guidelines - Branding, Buttons (Global), Tabs/Navigation


Interaction and Usage Specifications


General Principles



Common Layout Options for Advertising

Contextual Placement of Advertisements
As noted above under "General Principles," the placement of an advertisement within the UI of an application should be contextual. Below are common recommended configurations for advertisement placement within the UI based on the advertisements context - global to entire application or local to a page contents.
error-file:tidyout.log



Visual Specifications

Advertisement Measurements and Placement on Page

Below are measurement and placement diagrams of advertisements at the top of the entire application. Large Ad Centered at Top of Entire Page

error-file:tidyout.log

Small Ad Centered Between Global Buttons and Branding

error-file:tidyout.log



Advertising at the Top of the Entire Application Page

Below are examples of advertisements at the top of the entire application, or contextual to all the contents of an application. Large Ad Centered at Top

error-file:tidyout.log

Multiple Ads or "Ad Bar" Centered at Top

error-file:tidyout.log

Medium Ad Centered Between Corporate Logo and Global Buttons at Top

error-file:tidyout.log



Advertising in the Contents Area of the Page

Below are examples of advertisements at the top of the page contents area of an application. These ads are contextual to the current page contents that is being displayed in the application. Large Ad Right Aligned at Top of Page Contents

error-file:tidyout.log

Ads (Various Medium/Small Sizes) in Contents of Page forming Right in Page for details about different types of containers that can be used in content of page.

error-file:tidyout.log

error-file:tidyout.log



Advertising with Co-Branding Options

Co-Branding with Large Ad Centered at Top

error-file:tidyout.log

Co-Branding with Medium Ad Centered between Co-Brands at Top

error-file:tidyout.log

Co-Branding with Advertising at Top of Page Contents

error-file:tidyout.log



INVALID EXAMPLES: of Advertising Options Below are examples of NOT VALID ADVERTISEMENT PLACEMENT. These examples compete with the branding of the product as well as interfer with the usability of some of the key UI components. INVALID EXAMPLE: Co-Branding and Advertisement forming Bar at Top of Page
This example illustrates how the advertisement can compete with the cobranding, where the cobranding actually can be confused by the user as an advertisement.
error-file:tidyout.log

INVALID EXAMPLE: Branding or Co-Branding Parallel with Advertisements 1
These examples illustrate how the advertisement can compete with the branding or co-branding of a product. Visually it is difficult to recognize the branding of the product, and/or whether or not the branding is an advertisement.
INVALID EXAMPLE: Branding Parallel with Advertisement
error-file:tidyout.log

INVALID EXAMPLE: Co-Branding Parallel with Advertisement
error-file:tidyout.log

INVALID EXAMPLE: Branding that Looks like Ad Parallel with Advertisement
error-file:tidyout.log

INVALID EXAMPLE: Branding or Co-Branding Parallel with Advertisements 2
These examples pose horizontal scrolling problems since they do not allow for global button extensibility or branding name extensibility. These examples may also pose usability problems, because the positioning of this square ad is most prominent, and core components have been moved in their standard in the UI.
INVALID EXAMPLE: Square Ad at Top Left
error-file:tidyout.log

INVALID EXAMPLE: Square Ad at Top Right
error-file:tidyout.log



Open/Closed Issues


Open Issues

07.07.00 - Small ads (centered between global buttons and branding) need to clip into branding when browser window size is reduced. See visual example for details.

Closed Issues

07.07.00 - placement and measurement diagrams added of advertising 03.13.00 - some examples of invalid advertisement placement was taken out of guideline spec.