Accessibility Features of SAS Visual Analytics :: SAS(R) Visual Analytics 5.1: User's Guide

Overview

SAS Visual Analytics has been tested with assistive technology tools. It includes accessibility and compatibility features that improve the usability of the product for users with disabilities, with exceptions noted below. These features are related to accessibility standards for electronic information technology that were adopted by the U.S. Government under Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (2008 draft proposal initiative update). Applications are also tested against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). For detailed information about the accessibility of this product, send e-mail to accessibility@sas.com or call SAS Technical Support.

User Interface Layout

SAS Visual Analytics contains the following interfaces:

The SAS Visual Analytics home page contains three main sections:
- The top of the home page contains the Home bar, the menu bar, and the toolbar. The Home bar contains a Home button that enables you to return to the SAS Visual Analytics home page. The menu bar contains menus and a Log Off button.
- The center of the home page contains the workspace, where you can create content, view your content, or view content created by other users.
- The right side of the home page contains a Common Actions panel, which provides an alternate way to create reports, explore data, and manage your environment or favorites. The Videos panel links you to a video for SAS Visual Analytics. The SAS Resources panel links you to resources on the SAS Web site and to social media.
The data preparation interface in SAS Visual Analytics enables you to perform data preparation operations and to manage the environment. The application window contains four main sections:
- The top of the window contains the application name and an application bar that includes a menu bar and a Log Off button.
- The left side of the window contains a collapsible navigation pane. This pane contains a view of the SAS Folders tree. You can navigate the tree to select tables (one at a time) for use in data preparation, loading into a SAS LASR Analytic Server instance, or adding data to HDFS.
- The center of the window (the work area) contains tabs that you use for preparing data and managing the environment. Each data preparation activity is performed on a tab. A tab is also opened for working with HDFS, for monitoring resources and processes, and for managing mobile devices. The work area can be split (either vertically or horizontally) into two groups of tabs.
- The bottom of the window contains a status bar that displays information about your connection to the metadata server.
The explorer interface in SAS Visual Analytics enables you to explore data. The application window contains four main sections:
- The top of the window contains the Home bar, the menu bar, and the toolbar. The Home bar contains a Home button that enables you to return to the SAS Visual Analytics home page. The menu bar contains menus and a Log Off button.
- The left side of the window contains the data panel. The data panel contains all of the data items in your visual exploration. A table at the bottom of the data panel enables you to modify the properties of the data item that is currently selected.
- The center of the window contains the workspace. The workspace contains the visualizations (charts, tables, histograms, and maps) for your visual exploration. A dock bar at the bottom of the workspace enables you to manage your visualizations.
- The right side of the window is a panel that contains the Roles, Filters, and Properties tabs. The Roles tab enables you to manage data roles for the current visualization. The Filters tab enables you to create filters for the current visualization. The Properties tab enables you to manage properties for the current visualization.
The designer interface in SAS Visual Analytics provides a framework for working with data and reports. The application window contains four main sections:
- The top of the window contains the Home bar, the menu bar, and the toolbar. The Home bar contains a Home button that enables you to return to the SAS Visual Analytics home page. The menu bar contains menus and a Log Off button.
- The left side of the window contains the data panel. The data panel contains all of the data items in your visual exploration. A table at the bottom of the data panel enables you to modify the properties of the data item that is currently selected.
- The center of the window is the canvas (or workspace) where you design reports.
- The right side of the window contains a panel for the Properties tab, which lists the properties for the currently selected report object. The Styles tab enables you to specify styles for the data, frame, and text, as well as colors for the data. The Display Rules tab enables you to specify a range for report objects that support this feature.

To customize the application window and its features, select File

Preferences. On the SAS Visual Analytics home page, click either edit preferences icon

or Edit Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box. For more information about the layout and features of SAS Visual Analytics, see Your First Look at the SAS Visual Analytics Home Page.

Themes

An application’s theme is the collection of colors, graphics, and fonts that appear in the application. The following themes are provided with this application: SAS Corporate, SAS Blue Steel, SAS Light, and SAS Dark. To change the theme for the application, select File

Preferences and go to the Global Preferences page.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to magnify the contents of the browser window or to invert the application colors. For more information, see Keyboard Shortcuts.

Note: If you have special requirements for your themes, then contact your system administrator or visual designer about using the SAS Theme Designer for Flex application to build custom themes. SAS Theme Designer for Flex is installed with SAS themes. For more information about this tool, see SAS Theme Designer for Flex: User's Guide.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following table contains the keyboard shortcuts for the application. In the user interface, the shortcuts are displayed within parentheses in tooltips and menu labels.

Note: Some application-level keyboard shortcuts do not work when you first open an application. When that happens, press Tab to place the focus on the application, and then try the keyboard shortcut again.

Note: When you use a keyboard shortcut to activate a button, first give the focus to the field or section that the button is associated with before you use the keyboard shortcut. For example, if a table has an associated Help

button, you must first move the focus to the table before you press Ctrl+?.

Task	Keyboard Shortcut
Open a Help pop-up window from the button.	Ctrl+? Note: This shortcut does not work on some keyboards (for example, the Italian keyboard).
Zoom in.	Ctrl++
Zoom out.	Ctrl+-
Reset the zoom state.	Ctrl+0
Hide or show the application bar (includes the menu bar and the workspace bar), category pane, and tile pane.	Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M
Open a pop-up menu.	Shift+F9 (if a menu is available in that context) Note: If you use Shift+F9 to display the pop-up menu, then it is always displayed in the top left corner of the user interface control that you are using.
Open the Landmarks window and move focus to the list of landmarks. Each landmark represents an area of the application window. You can quickly navigate to that area of the application by selecting a landmark.	Ctrl+F6 and then tab once.
Temporarily invert or revert application colors (for the current session only). Note: You can set the Invert application colors preference in the Preferences window if you want the color change to persist across sessions.	Ctrl+~
Rename the selected tab.	Make sure that focus is on the tab. Press F2 and specify the new name. To commit your changes, press Enter. To cancel your changes, press Esc.
Close the selected tab.	Make sure that focus is on the tab, and then press Delete. Note: Some tabs cannot be closed.
Navigate to the column headings in a table.	For a two-dimensional table, first make sure that focus is on the table. Press Ctrl+F8 to move the focus to the column headings, and then use the arrow keys to navigate from heading to heading. For a multidimensional table, first make sure that focus is on the table. Press Tab to move the focus to the column headings, and then use the arrow keys to navigate from heading to heading.
Sort columns in a table.	To sort a single column, navigate to the column heading of the column that you want to sort. Press spacebar to sort the column. To sort additional columns, navigate to the column heading of each additional column that you want to sort. Press Ctrl+spacebar.

Exceptions to Accessibility Standards

These exceptions are known to occur when using the application with Internet Explorer.

Accessibility Issue	Workaround
Using JAWS with this application can sometimes cause Internet Explorer to stop responding.	Using JAWS 13 or later might resolve the issue.
JAWS cannot read some of the controls in the application, such as images, icons, and buttons.
JAWS cannot read the tooltips of items in trees and lists.
JAWS refers to table controls as list boxes.	When JAWS reports that a control is a list box, keep in mind that it might actually be a table.
The keyboard shortcuts that are used to interact with editable tables can conflict with keyboard shortcuts for JAWS’ forms mode.	As a best practice, disable the JAWS virtual PC cursor when you work with tables. Tab to the table and press Insert+Z to disable the JAWS virtual PC cursor. When you finish interacting with the table, press Insert+Z to re-enable the JAWS virtual PC cursor.
JAWS cannot read two-column property tables.
JAWS does not correctly read the information in a table: JAWS cannot read the column headings of a table. When table cells are not editable and focus is on the body of the table, JAWS reads an entire row at a time instead of cell by cell. When table cells are editable, and focus is on the body of the table, JAWS reads only the first row of the table. If you use the arrow keys to select a cell or row, then JAWS does not read anything. If you press Enter to edit a cell, then JAWS reads the row that contains the edited cell.
When you are in a table cell, if you press Home, End, Page Up, or Page Down, the selected cell will change to be one in the first column of the currently displayed columns for the table.	Use the arrow keys to navigate through the cells of the table.
You cannot use the keyboard to activate the links within how-to topics and Help pop-up windows.	Use the Help menu to access the linked documents.
You cannot use Shift+F10 to open a pop-up menu.	Use Shift+F9 to open pop-up menus that are created for the SAS application. The generic menu that is provided by the Flash player cannot be opened by Shift+F9.
You cannot use the keyboard to access the close (x) button that is in the top right corner of a tab.	Make sure that focus is on the tab, and then press Delete to close the tab.
Visual focus for the menu bar is indicated with an outline around the entire menu bar. To select individual menus, use the left or right arrow key.
You cannot use the keyboard to navigate to all of the items in a drop-down list if the list is a hierarchical structure (a tree, for example).
Sometimes, after the focus leaves the application (Flash player) area of the Web browser, you will not be able to use the keyboard to return focus to the application.

Accessibility Workarounds for the SAS Mobile BI App

These are workarounds for the SAS Mobile BI app:

Accessibility Issue	Workaround
After opening an XML file, no part of the screen automatically receives focus.	Continue normal screen navigation to have voice over read the page.
In a table-style report object, voice over reads the entire row instead of only the currently selected cell.	No workaround.
In Folder view of the Library, tab to any folder and tap on it. Tab to a sub-folder. The tab list ends at the bottom of the current folder list.	You must roll over the sub-folder area in order for the sub-folder contents to appear in the tab list.
The contents of the My Portfolio screen appear to be a disjointed set of controls. However, the screen actually contains the reports that have been downloaded.	Voice-over users should drag their finger around the screen to find the name of each report and then split tap or double tap to open each report.
When deleting a report, there is a visual indicator that a specific report has been selected for deletion. However, that selected state is not communicated to voice-over users.	To delete reports, voice-over users must first select the report to delete and then examine the state of the Delete button. If the Delete button is active, a report is selected and it will be deleted when the Delete button is activated. However, it is not possible to confirm which report will be deleted using voice over.