Monday, February 2, 2015

APEX 5 EA 3 - Universal theme

Oracle APEX 5 early adopter 3 just came out.

I've been taking the Universal Theme Sample Application for a quick test drive.


I'm truly impressed by what I've seen so far, and a little sad at the same time..

Oracle APEX developers typically come from a database development background, so have strong database design and PL/SQL skills, with relatively few of them having strong web design skills.

In some respects, this has held back the adoption of Oracle APEX in organisations. Developers have been able to quickly build useful and functional web applications using the provided themes with relative ease.

Functional Lada
Sexy Veyron Super Sport
Trouble is "functional" websites don't evoke the same emotional experience as a "sexy" website, just like a functional car like a Lada doesn't evoke the excitement and desire of a super car like a Veyron (pinched from Joel Kallmans' blog).

Out there in "user-land" functional and practical websites don't engage our customers in the same way a visually appealing and well thought out interface does. The visual appeal of any website plays a vital role in user satisfaction. A visually appealing website give the user a positive first impression, and builds the desire to work with it.

Now thanks to the Universal Theme, having a "sexy" website is within the reach of every APEX developer. It looks fantastic out of the box, chock full of the latest UI components and highly configurable with little or no knowledge of CSS. With Oracle APEX 5.0 everyone can build web applications that are both functional and sexy.

To the APEX development team, I tip my hat to you and say very well done.

So why do I feel a little sad; it's always been a fun putting together a great UI for an application to transform it from functional to appealing. I won't get to do that so much now, it looks great already.