Over the past year, the emoji catalog has grown substantially. Superheroes, redheads, women in new careers, new skin tones, a hot and cold face, and many other emojis have been added to the emoji catalog.
Now Apple has proposed a whole new set of emojis that are focused on people with disabilities. These 13 new emojis include service animals, prosthetic limbs, hearing aids, deaf males and females, a man and a woman in a mechanized wheelchair, a man and a woman in a manual wheelchair, and a man and a woman with a cane.
Apple created these new emojis in partnership with the American Council of the Blind, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and the National Association of the Deaf.
Apple’s proposal to the Unicode Consortium states
”Currently, emoji provide a wide range of options, but may not represent the experiences of those with disabilities…. Diversifying the options available helps fill a significant gap and provides a more inclusive experience for all.”
Kudos to Apple for working on this proposal. But it’s worth noting that just about anyone can propose a new emoji. After all, last year a teenager proposed a headscarf emoji which was later accepted into the emoji catalog.