Branding the Simplified Interface is a powerful and useful PBCS and FCCS feature, which can help potential customers identify with the product and also allow current customers to add their own distinct flair to their system.
Before
After
You can see the results in the before and after screenshots above, the difference in appearance can make a real instant impact, and could be the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity.
The Branding options are found under Tools > Appearance. You have four main options:
Theme
This is the main colour scheme for the text and buttons within the system. Oracle have created several default themes, and it’s worth trying out the default ones before you commit fully to producing a customised branded look for your system.
Our recommendation is usually to use a white text scheme, because this gives a cleaner and more consistent look throughout the application. As most of the options give you white text, this also gives you more freedom to customise your button colour.
Alternatively, to get black text you need to choose the Bright Blue option.
Logo
This is the small picture that appears next to the application name, at the top of the screen. This can be best utilised with a small logo with a transparent background. As the name suggests, this is perfect for adding your company logo to the application. Use a 100x50 PNG image for maximum impact.
Background
This is the background image. Care should be taken when creating your background, as it should conform to a set of restrictions to look appealing. Backgrounds are notoriously difficult to create well, so several of our customers choose to use the default background and just add a logo. However, if you can get it built right, it can add a real impact to your application.
Typically, Oracle recommend the size to be 1600 x 1250 pixels to work on tablets like iPads, however your computer monitors will only use the top 1600 x 900 pixels so all your main branding should be in this area. Be aware that the background will vary based on the screen resolution of the user viewing it. In addition, the background should try to remain neutral behind the buttons so that they can be read more easily.
The Logo and Background are both referenced by a URL, and you have a couple of options on how to define these. It’s possible to upload and host the image within the “Explore” area in your PBCS application which will load up very quickly, but this is bugged and won’t appear on iPads. Typically we host them on an external site which can take slightly longer to load but has 100% uptime on all mediums.
Shape
Finally we have the Shape option, which changes the borders of all buttons and text boxes to whichever shape you select. This can help add a polished look to your interface. We prefer the round look ourselves!
In conclusion – if you put some time and effort into this feature it can really pay dividends when presenting the system within your organisation. However, you should also be aware of the risks involved with poorly built branding, and particularly with the background image. As always, the experts at Brovanture are here to advise on how best to present your system!
Until next time,
Mike
