Advertising Usage

General Principles

• Advertisements should not interfer with any other components in the UI. (i.e., The location of global buttons should not be replaced by advertising or the branding area should not be replaced by advertising)
• Advertisements should be placed in a location that will not effect the usability of an application. (i.e., Common locations for advertisements are at the very top of the page, or forming a right column within the page contents)
• Advertising should not visually compete with UI components or branding of application.
• The placement of an advertisement is contextual to the contents of the application, or the contents of a page. (e.g., Advertising should not be more visually prominent than branding, global buttons, page contents headers, or tab/navigation structure.)
  • Advertising at the top of the entire page is contextual to the entire application
    (e.g., An automobile exchange web application that lets sellers auction auto parts to automobile builders could use car part advertising at the top of the entire application page.)
  • Advertising at the top of page contents (i.e., underneath the tab/navigation structure) is contextual to the content which is being viewed.)
    (e.g., An ecommerce application that sells books may have a science fiction section. Within this section, ads displayed within the content would be contextual to science fiction.)
• Advertisements should not be aligned left in the page contents area or in the upper portion of the UI. Left alignment should be reserved for branding (at the top of entire page) or prominent application content (in the page contents area.)
• There are a variety of sizes of advertisements seen on the web today, but within an Oracle HTML application, the recommended sizes of advertisements that should be used are:
  • ~460 x 60
  • ~230 x 60
  • ~230 x 30
• For accessibility purposes, advertising should have an "alt" tag for each individual advertisement. The "alt" tag should describe the contents of the graphic advertisement.

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.

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



Small Ad Centered Between Global Buttons and Branding

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



Multiple Ads or "Ad Bar" Centered at Top



Medium Ad Centered Between Corporate Logo and Global Buttons at Top

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



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.

Advertising with Co-Branding Options

Co-Branding with Large Ad Centered at Top



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



Co-Branding with Advertising at Top of Page Contents





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.


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 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.

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.