GESB’s Jane Ots wins Australian Access Award

Jane’s role championing accessibility at GESB

As an organisation, our formal accessibility journey began in 2019, when we first partnered with the Centre for Inclusive Design (CFID) to improve the accessibility of our website and Retirement planning calculator.

Since then, we have introduced several new online initiatives and process improvements as part of our ongoing accessibility journey.

In this year’s Australian Access Awards, Jane was awarded the honour of ‘Accessibility Person of the Year’ for 2021 and we congratulate her on this outstanding achievement.

Jane has been the driving force behind our online accessibility initiatives including our website, Retirement planning calculator and other initiatives, which have resulted in outstanding compliance against WCAG 2.0 level AA criteria.

GESB’s accessibility focus and achievements have been a group effort, according to Jane.

“I’m proud to be part of GESB’s accessibility journey and our achievements so far,” she said.

“I’ve been honoured to work alongside such dedicated people at the Centre of Accessibility Australia, our web developers DaNiro and Squiz, and our team at GESB. We should all be proud of the work we’re doing to help make a difference in people’s lives.”

She continues to help us embed accessibility into our culture, practices and training, making sure accessibility is a key consideration in all of our projects and processes. She is providing her expertise in accessibility as a member of our Disability Access and Inclusion Plan committee, helping to develop our 2022-26 plan and leading our future in accessibility.

Our commitment to accessibility

Two of our nominations were based on our interactive ‘Selecting your investment plan’ tool. We launched this tool on our website in August 2021.

You may have tried our tool already. The tool asks you about your investment timeframe, goals and risk appetite and provides educational content to help make these concepts easy to understand. Based on the answers you provide, the tool guides you to choose the most appropriate investment plan for your super, with results which can be printed or emailed.

Our ‘Selecting your investment plan’ tool was created with member accessibility and engagement at the centre of the design.

To make sure our tool met the required standards, Dr Scott Hollier tested it against all WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria and found it to be fully compliant. Dr Hollier is the CEO of the Centre for Accessibility Australia, holds a PhD in Internet Studies, forms part of the W3C Accessible Platform Architectures Research Questions Task Force and has lived personal and professional experience of disability as a person who is legally blind. Dr Hollier was also nominated for the 2022 Western Australia Australian of the Year Awards.

Dr Hollier praised GESB for its commitment to helping all members access its products and services.

"Accessibility isn’t just about compliance," he said. "For myself being legally blind, accessibility is the difference between independently achieving my goals or struggling and relying heavily on others."

"GESB has a strong commitment to helping their members and the wider community achieve independence when interacting online. They are a leader in accessibility, and I commend their dedication to developing 100% accessible tools and resources."