Ever seen the term d/Deaf? One letter, two meanings
One of my latest learnings on my accessibility journey was discovering that deaf and Deaf mean different things.
deaf (lowercase d) refers to the medical condition of hearing loss, regardless of sign language use, cultural identity, or when it occurred.
Deaf (capital D) describes a cultural and linguistic identity centred around sign language, such as NZSL.
It was a simple distinction, but one that reminded me how much language matters when we're designing for inclusion.



















































