A total of 230 new emojis are set to feature in the sixth major update to the official emoji list. These include a range of new accessibility themed emojis, which have been praised by disabled rights campaigners who have considered disability and disabled people to be greatly underrepresented. Hopefully this will see a rise in accessibility representation across many forms of social media. So, what is available and when will you be able to use them?
Following a complaint by Apple about representation of those with disabilities through emojis a series of new characters were created, as 1 in 7 people around the world suffer from some form of disability. These include Wheelchairs, powerchairs, guide dogs, prosthetic limbs, a probing cane, a hearing aid and a deaf character. As is standard now with emojis, all these new characters are available as men and women, as well as a range of ethnicities.
These new characters come from the original 13 drawings submitted by Apple in March last year. After consulting with a number of disability councils across America, including the American Council of the Blind and the National Association of the Deaf they expanded on their designs to create those which should be available to the public later this year. Check out the new designs here. Do you feel these well represent the disabled community?
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