Request for immediate changes to PERSON WITH WHITE CANE (etc) emoji

[Doug Ewell]

I would like to apologize, sincerely, for what was perceived as a snide or dismissive tone in my earlier message. Any sarcasm or snarkiness that may have been intended was not directed at Sai, nor at any user of a blind cane.

I would also like to walk back any implication that it was inappropriate for Sai to post this message to the Unicode list. It is an effective way to reach the people who are actually in a position to make the requested changes. Certainly sending an email to “Google” or “Apple,” generically, would be unlikely to achieve the same effect.

Sławomir is correct that an actual proposal form needs to be submitted in order to request formal action. However, raising awareness of the issue on this list is not an inappropriate first step, as long as there is no expectation it will directly result in action.

It does have to be noted that no “immediate” action can be expected of either Unicode (to the extent they have any action items, which I still question) or any vendor or font designer. That is simply not the timetable on which standards development organizations and font designers operate. They will triage the reported issue and determine its urgency and priority on their own terms. And even if new fonts were rolled out today, the new images would not immediately replace the old ones. End users of both computers and phones are notoriously slow in performing updates, and often turn off automatic updating services or delay the process as long as possible. So, things will happen when they happen.

Regarding reference glyphs, there is no bright line that fits all scenarios for when a reference glyph, or any vendor’s implementation, deviates far enough from its original intent that it can be considered incorrect. At least with normal (non-emoji) characters, there is a concept of the character’s identity. To cite Rebecca’s point, obviously a glyph for U+0041 that is shaped like LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B is over the line; but at the same time, no glyph for U+0041 is required to have serifs or to have the left leg of the A narrower than the right leg, as the reference glyph shows.

Likewise, a blind person riding a cane like a witch’s broom would obviously — *obviously* — be over the line, but the depicted technique for holding it while walking was apparently lost on most reviewers back in 2018 when this character and its combining sequences were proposed. (Not everybody, though: see Karishma Shah’s public-review comment in https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18138-access-fdbk.pdf , which appears not to have been heeded.)

I never claimed that holding a cane with its bungee loop around one’s wrist was not a safety hazard. That is a misrepresentation. My comment was about reliance on vendors’ emoji glyphs, especially at small size, to illustrate or teach correct behavior.

And that raises one of the issues I have had with Unicode emoji for many years: as they have grown in scope over the years from generic, yellow Simpsons-like faces to try to cover all human scenarios (and more), users have come to expect them to have that characteristic, and have become frustrated or even angry when a scenario is not covered or depicted in a flawed way. Examples of this are legion.

I don’t know that all people expect emoji glyphs to depict correct behavior, but it is certainly possible that some do. But I would imagine that blind people, and sighted people who work with them, would have better, more authoritative, more carefully designed guidelines for the proper use of equipment than emoji.

I hope that vendors take this proposed change on board and make the glyphs in their emoji fonts more consistent with safe and correct behavior.

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Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org