Review Booklets and Multidimensional Analysis Apps: What do you need to know about Accessibility?

[Stefan-Kraus]

Introduction 

Review Booklets and Multidimensional Analysis Applications (MDA) have made significant progress towards modernizing the reporting capabilities in S/4HANA. This greatly improves the ability of business users to monitor your business and obtain business insights using embedded analytics. These capabilities have matured and are now ready for mainstream use. In this blog we  focus on important aspects of usability and accessibility.

Please refer to  previous blogs and documentation about those review booklets and MDA from earlier releases:

- Multidimensional Analysis a Stepstone to modern Reporting in S/4HANA 

- www.help.sap.com, Review Booklets CE2602, Multidimensional Analysis CE2602

Those reporting apps have become more and more insightful, delivering standard reporting out-of the box with immediate real-time access to data, within the known Fiori user experience, and without additional installations or efforts. 

Here is a short overview of the most important features:

Figure 1: Use Cases

Important features include:

• Guided business pages and layouts, optimized for typical business questions.
• Generic pivoting and drill-down in the layout side panel.
• Filtering at both the booklet and page levels.
• Contextual navigation using intent-based navigation.
• Cell-based commenting and page comments.
• AI assisted Business insights.
• Collaboration on business pages in teams and on comments using notifications
• The ability to copy, create and adapt booklets within key user extensibility.
• The option to create new booklets as a customer developer using embedded steampunk.

The Accessibility Approach:

An important step toward maturity is addressing this question: how can advanced reporting meet accessibility standards?
Accessibility ensures that everyone can effectively use and interact with complex multidimensional analytical tasks, regardless of whether they have disabilities or not. Here are some important aspects to consider:

1. Intuitive Interface Design:  This includes a simple and consistent layout that's easy to understand with intuitive navigation
   - Simplicity in "Accessibility and Fullscreen mode".
   - Simple screen titles, headings and accessible alternatives.
2. Visual Perception and Readability
   - Text resizing.
   - Color and contrast Setting.
   - Responsive design,
3. Key Board Navigation
   - Consistent navigation and context menus
   - Key board focus and  group skipping.
   
   
4. Assistive tool support  and screen reader compatibility.

These topics are illustrated and explained in this blog.
Please note that many usability features are very useful for everyone.

Intuitive User Interface and Accessibility/Fullscreen Mode

A typical review booklet combines multiple pages prepared to answer the most typical business question in a certain area.

The information is offered through a user-Interface consisting of a "Filter Bar", multiple "Business Pages", "Combo Boxes", "Table/Grid with Context Menus" and "Side Panels" offering different features and capabilities:

Figure 2: User Interface Elements

A typical example might look like the screen below.
For users with disabilities or impairments, it might be challenging to access the different controls and interact with the many features, ranging from filtering and changing the layout to advanced pivoting. 

Figure 3: From Review Booklet to full-screen mode

Nevertheless "Review Booklets" and "Multidimensional Applications" are designed with accessibility and usability in mind.

To simplify the screen,  we offer a full-screen mode, which also serves as an accessibility mode. See Figure 3.
Each feature is available through an accessible alternative within the context menu. See more details in the chapter key board navigation and figure 6.

Figure 4: Agenda View in Full-Screen mode

In full-screen mode, you work and explore the current page, but you can easily access all pages via a simple agenda view,  as shown in Figure 4.

Visual Perception and Readability

This allows you to zoom into the details and ensure that all the details are easy to read.
Combined with theming (for example the High Contrast Black Theme)  and responsive design, the readability can be increased dramatically. 
 

Figure 5: High Contrast Black Horizon Theme.

Keyboard Navigation

Keyboard navigation is a convenient way to move the focus in your application without using the mouse. By using Tab and Shift Tab, you can move the focus to the next element on the screen. Group Skipping -  F6 and Shift F6 allow you to quickly jump between groups of elements such as the filter bar, table or side panel.

Figure 6: Opening context menu to access all features

As already mentioned, the most important feature is to launch the context menu using Ctrl Shift F10.

This gives you easy access to all available feature via an accessible path. The layout can be changed by adding, removing or moving dimensions to rows and columns, hierarchy handling or filtering. In addition you can open accessible side panels to work on page filters, comments, export to Excel and PDF, or use contextual navigation.

Please also note that the focus of your cursor makes a significant difference. When you click on the dimension header, you will find context menus that apply to all the dimension items. This is in contrast to clicking on a single dimension item. The same principle applies to the measure header and items as well as to the Structure header and items. To make an example: expand and collapse  hierarchy is done on dimension header, because it applies to all items. Filter a single item is done on item level.

Assistive Tool Support  and Screen Reader

Assistive tool support and screen readers are crucial for visually impaired individuals to access digital content. The recommended screen reader is JAWS (Job Access With Speech), which reads the content on the screen aloud, allowing users to navigate and interact with their computers using text-to-speech technology. JAWS can describe icons, menus, and other screen elements, making it easier for people with visual impairments to use applications and websites independently.

Especially for screen reader use cases, it is very important that every cell contains the full information.
Merged cells cause trouble because relevant information gets lost.
This can be fixed by showing the content of merged cells as shown in the screenshot below.
As soon as you show the content of merged cells for example the measure "Sign-Adjusted Amount in Group Currency" is displayed in each column of the table. See Figure 7.

Figure 7: Display the content of merged cells

In addition, we can also move the currency into the related amount cell using the formatting side panel.
By default the currency is typically shown in the column header, which also causes issues in screen reader use cases.

Figure 8: How to add currency or unit to data cells?

Outlook

You might wonder: How can AI and large language models simplify the lives of people who need accessible software?

Imagine the challenge to understand a complex and hierarchical data table when using a screen reader.
Without visual context, it's difficult to grasp the content of rows, columns and data cells, which are delivered as disconnected fragments to your ear.

It becomes much easier if you can ask a large language model to identify and interpret the critical aspects providing a more holistic and comprehensive summarization.

Users can quickly understand complex table data, saving time and enhancing their overall experience. This approach makes data analysis more efficient and accessible to all users

Let's illustrate this with an example from the context of Group Financial Statement Review Booklets in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2508.

Figure 9: Example "Summarize and Combine Comments"

The 'Business Insights' Tab includes several quick actions designed to transfer a data table to a large language model.
This process summarizes the content, giving you a comprehensive interpretation of the tabular information in a consistent readout. Using the example, using  "Summarize and combine comments" includes related comments in summarization result.

A potential result appears as a summarization provided to the screen reader.

Figure 10: Interpretation of a complex data table using large language models.

As a result, you receive a comprehensive summary of all relevant aspects and associated comments, delivered efficiently through the data table.  Look forward to upcoming enhancements. This is only the first step in a much larger innovation journey.

Further Links and Resources:

Accessibilty Features in Review Booklets
https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/6b356c79dea443c4bbeeaf0865e04207/e14ea59510d54bf1979...

	SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition	SAP S/4HANA/SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
Accessibility Features in Review Booklets	link to help.sap.com	link to help.sap.com
Review Booklets	link to help.sap.com	link to help.sap.com
Multidimensional Analysis	link to help.sap.com	link to help.sap.com
Cost Centers Review Booklet	link to help.sap.com	link to help.sap.com
Group Financials Statement – Review Booklet	link to help.sap.com	link to help.sap.com