Businesses report increasing use of emojis internally and in selected external communication.
Emojis had their origins as emoticons—typed characters on a keyboard “:-)”—visual metaphors for communicative import. With the expanded use of unicode, visual depiction using the keyboard to create character symbols became possible by inserting standalone drawings or diagrams
There are now two main categories of emojis: proprietary and general (Unicode).
- Proprietary emojis function properly within an individual platform or operating system (Facebook for example)
- Standardized versions across the internet are possible because a standard setting body called Unicode has created a definition of emoji symbols depicted by each platform or operating system honoring that symbol. A unique character string and a unique number assigned with a particular Emoji will have a representative glyph or are an outline diagram (like smiling face J) which is offered to all the platforms and each platform can then depict it however they see fit.
The whole benefit of Unicode is that when these emojis travel across platforms you should be able to get the same gist of the message but Unicode standardization is not complete so it means that each platform has depicted these in slightly different ways and those details might matter to their interpretation. Unicode standardization is designed to make sure that emojis can work across the entire network not just within a single platform but the fact that they don’t look the same creates potential problems.
The differences in depictions can occur from either static or dynamic causes as each operating system or platform both renders emojis slightly differently and updates their emoji depictions differently.
As an example the same people using differing iOS versions are going to see different symbols representing smileys and those different symbols are going to communicate very different things, an issue especially problematic in informal contracts. The problem is confounded when the emojis are sent cross-platforms, often without context or shared interpretations, creating a possibility for legal misunderstandings. Multiple recipients or multiple senders could results in multiple versions of a single emoji.
Native or near-native preservation is also critical as is full capture of any animation that is essential to understanding of the emoji. Workplace community short code quickly conveys contextual meaning
AI generated new emojis are continually refreshed but platform-rendering differences remain. And trying to give a universal UI, UX, and GUI to unfamiliar emotions requires an inherently challenging task.
Varied-platform rendering of the Unicode standard occurs obliviously to the user, an unprecedented example of having the technology mediator change the substance of what people are saying without informing them of such.
Emojis as modern-day Gen Z hieroglyphics
Assuming you get past the ownership and licensing issues you want to make sure—if using emojis for sales and promotion—that the emoji aligns with the brand (reputation): use of emoji is better clear than cute. Slack is a particularly supportive form of IM communication facilitating emoji usage.
The issue and usage of emojis is also bound up with the generational ascendance of millenials who were born into this world and couldn’t conceive of working in a world without them. Like, troglodyte: Can we use WhatsApp at work? Full Win / iOS / Chrome //BYOD support?
Understand that emojis are an integral part of the millenial/Gen Z semiotic mindset/consciousness.
Cultural differences have disproportionally negatively impacted Global organizations. Mighty Walmart was waylaid in their branding of their everyday low prices with J, offensive somewhere as being not genuine.
Emojis and the Law
Managers must be circumspectual in their use of emojis as litigation discovery of archived text messages might misinterpret intent and context. In anticipation of legal holds, corporate communication language should explicitly anticipate emoji rendering variations. Emojis are still rare in the US judicial system rulings (some 80 occurrences in 2019 and over 10 emoticons) though their appearance has been growing exponentialy.
Discovery challenges arise from a lack of a common nomenclature. Understand the underlying Unicode rendering spectrum. Finding pictures requires looking in the rendered text, shortcodes are found in the extracted text and Codepoints are found in the source code.
Basic intent remains a litigious issue. A recent sexual harassment case in which a plaintiff alleged that her co-workers / managers were sending her inappropriate messages and the court noted in its opinion that the emojis accompanying some of those messages included a face kissing a face with heart for eyes and the court struggled with describing and understanding them.
