On Friday, Apple proposes a set of accessibility emojis for disabled people. Apple tried to expand the emojis by submitting a proposal to Unicode Consortium, the emoji keeper as reported by Emojimedia. The new emojis requested are focused particularly on the people with disabilities. It includes 13 new emojis which accounts for 43 overall when the different skin tones for each emoji is taken into account. On its submission, Apple wrote – “We are requesting a set of emojis which will represent people with disabilities. Currently, we have a wide range of emojis available but are not sufficient to represent the experiences of the disables.” The new set of emojis are divided across four different categories – “Deaf and Hearing Impaired, Blind or low vision, Hidden disabilities and physical motor’. The new emojis include – a person with a cane, a person singing, guide and service dog, an ear with hearing aid, prosthetic leg and arm and a person on a manual and mechanical wheelchair. Apple also added that this might just a starting set with more emojis to be included later on.
The new set of emojis submitted by Apple were made in a collaboration with The American Council of Blind, National Association for Deaf and Cerebral Palsy Foundation. The meeting of the Unicode Technical Committee is due next month where the emojis will be considered and if approved, will be on the shortlisted list for Emoji 12.0 which will be released in early 2019. The emoji list for this year has already decided done which will be released in late 2018. Apple said that it doesn’t consider the set of emojis as a comprehensive list of all possible emojis for the disables but just a starting point to represent diversity within the culture. Apple also considered proposing a set of coloured ribbon emojis but later dropped the idea as there was no consistency on which coloured represented which cause.
“We believe that technology is made for everyone and should be accessible to everyone using it. Adding emoji as a symbol of a person’s life experiences helps to encourage the development of culture which includes the disables. Emojis are a strong tool for communication as well as self-expression which are used not only to represent one’s personal experiences but to also show support to our dear ones”, Apple said while submitting the proposal.
S.E. Smith, a journalist which cover issues on disability told Gizmodo, ‘Before, people with disabilities had to use a combination of emojis to depict their feelings which might be irritating at some point’. Considering the fact that every one person in seven suffers from a disability, this set of emojis may help them reveal their life experiences directly by using them. He also added that ‘Representing themselves through a set of emojis might mean a lot to people and this is what technology is all about. Being a member of disability committee and emoji user, I am excited about the new set of emojis to represent ourselves and our experiences’.
