As discussed in the preceding blog post, “SAP Jam accessibility summary: Company-wide collaboration requires equal access to information for all employees”, where we summarized all the great work the SAP Jam team has done since 2014 to make SAP Jam accessible, this post will be covering the release 1805 specific enhancements around accessibility with a focus on enhancements for screen reader support.

To provide more color, we’re also going to address some design implications and why the changes were done below.

What problem are we trying to solve?

After speaking with the SAP Jam product team, they informed me that for users with low vision, there are some primary design considerations the SAP Jam team must take into consideration:
1. it’s critical to be able to navigate via a keyboard
2. the user must be able to utilize a screen reader
3. the user cannot be forced to rely on on-screen visual cues to guide them through the experience

We’re going to follow up to this blog post in the future with some design implication and background information in a continuing series of accessibility posts.

What’s new in this release, what problem does it address?

Firstly, we need to say that this list is not/may not exhaustive. Be sure to review the full SAP Jam release 1805 release notes at http://help.sap.com/sapjam for more information (click to SAP Jam Collaboration documentation then “What’s new and release restrictions”).

Screen reader support

Screen readers are dependent on both visible and invisible content (HTML header elements that build the page) to help the screen reader to understand the structure and organization of web pages, to enable smooth navigation through SAP Jam.

• HTML header elements were added to multiple pages across SAP Jam, including the company home page, group overview page, group feed updates page, and group content page.

For items where the user needs to make a selection, the screen reader needs to be able to read and announce the values listed in multi-valued fields such as dropdown menus, to enable users to have a complete understanding of options available.

• Support for this was added to various menus across SAP Jam when accessed using Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, including menus displayed in company home page, group overview page, and various sort/filter/action menus across groups.

For content widgets and the Recommended Content widget, the screen reader needs to be able to understand what the content is.

• The widgets have been enhanced such that there is accurate focus on each content item, with the widget title and content item being correctly announced by screen readers.

The activity feed

The feed activity experience was enhanced by ensuring screen readers can now correctly read the content of feed posts and announce the names of users who list a post. Previously, screen readers couldn’t detect the necessary information.