Bankwest has continued its investment in its digital experience for customers, complementing accessibility improvements to debit cards with enhancements to display features in the Bankwest App and online banking.
The changes have had a high-contrast colour palette incorporated and aligned across Bankwest’s digital and debit card offerings, better enabling low-vision customers to differentiate between – and identify specific – cards.
The digital enhancements to customers’ cards in-app have been complemented by physical changes to the actual card’s design, which now includes a rounded notch, making it easier to identify the card’s orientation.
The notch also enables customers to more easily differentiate a debit card from other cards, such as a driver's license or public transport card, which accessibility experts advised was a key challenge for vision impaired people
Bankwest engaged accessibility expert Vision Australia for the redesign, having identified the importance of high-contrast colours in digital channels, and the insufficiencies of raised lettering on cards for the vision impaired.
Bankwest General Manager Products and Digital Services Peter Bouhlas said: “Bankwest is committed to being a simple, easy bank, and we identified our digital and card experience could be improved for some customers.
“More than 97 per cent of transactions by Bankwest customers are now conducted digitally, so it’s important we continue to invest in that channel and ensure the experience meets the expectations of all our customers.
“The Bankwest brand redesign that was conducted a few years ago included a high-contrast colour palette to improve accessibility experiences, and we saw an opportunity to incorporate the secondary palette for customers.
“These high-contrast colours make differentiating cards easier for low-vision customers, with those colours replicated in the Bankwest App and Online Banking to ensure a simple, seamless physical and digital experience.
“We consulted Vision Australia on challenges faced by vision impaired customers and discovered the raised lettering on cards was not always an easy identifier, so we incorporated a notch for simpler touch-recognition.
“Importantly, we also engaged with customers who were not vision impaired to understand how the changes would be received by all customers, and the new design was overwhelmingly supported as modern and innovative.”
Bankwest cards incorporating the new design features have already begun being issued to customers.
