Adding Icons to Folders for Better Organization

[Mir O_]

Hi everyone,

I have a suggestion to improve folders: What if we could add icons or emojis to folders?

Folders are great for keeping pages from being blank and without valuable content. However, if each folder contains information and we want to make it more visual and different, why not add emojis or icons to differentiate between groups of pages, in addition to just renaming them? 

That could make it easier to identify and organize content. Isn't that possible? What do you think? Looking forward to your thoughts!

[Daniel Bagiński]

Hey! It was my very first thought. Parent pages could have icons, which make it more organized. I wish to have more customization options for folders as well.

[Ned Lindau]

Wow, @Mir O_ I literally came to the community this morning to ask this very question :). Here's what we're currently thinking, and I'd love everyone's feedback on which direction makes the most sense:

We want to add the ability for users to personalize / add emojis to folders, and we're trying to figure out the right design pattern. If we copy the same pattern that pages have today and add it to whiteboards, databases, and folders, then we run the risk of making it hard for users to figure out which content type something is without opening it first. In other words, here's what the content tree would look like if we had the same emoji pattern across content types:

Another idea we have for folders is to have the emoji appear within the folder itself, like this:

Curious for all of your thoughts as to which of the above would be preferable, or if you were thinking of a different pattern altogether. Thanks, as always, for your feedback!

[Kelsey Easterbrooks]

Just chiming in to say that I was just wishing for the ability to add an emoji the other day. 

@Ned Lindau - From my perspective, the value of the emoji is that it's a different color/visual prompt. With the icon showing on the folder, it's still the same grey color which doesn't help with the immediate visual difference in the same way emojis do.

That being said, I like that folders have the folder icon and it would look bad to have an emoji + a folder so I understand why you would consider putting an icon inside the folder. I think it would still be an improvement if you went in that direction!

[Mir O_]

I was thinking something like this:

Or this one:

These are my very basic mock-ups :')
But I want to make our documentation more engaging to my team by using images. This approach can make the content more playful and help break the monotony that documentation sometimes brings.
But, I'm not sure if it's possible.