🗣️Let's talk about emojis! Share you use cases with me!

[#1]

In this article, I want to share my use-cases for emojis and hear yours. What do you think about them? Can they be useful? Are there any problems when using them? Do you use custom emojis?

Emojis help convey feelings and tones that might be lost in plain text. This is especially evident in chat apps but also in the comment sections of tools like Jira and Confluence.

Without Emoji:

• "That's just great."

This phrase could easily be interpreted as sarcastic, especially if the context is unclear.

With Emoji:

• "That's just great! 😃"

The 😃 emoji clarifies that the speaker genuinely means it in a positive way.

I also believe that emojis can improve readability if used correctly.

👉 Custom Emojis: A Personalized Touch

Custom emojis can be particularly useful in professional settings. They allow teams to incorporate specific icons and symbols relevant to their work. For instance, my personal favorite use-case is adding software icons as emojis in Confluence to help organize and visually distinguish articles more effectively.

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👉 Adding Custom Emojis in Jira and Confluence

To add custom emojis in Jira and Confluence, follow these steps:

1. Click the Emoji Button: In the text editor, click the emoji button.
2. Add Your Own Emoji: Select "+ Add Your Own Emoji."

Note: This feature must be allowed by your admin. If not, the admin can add emojis from the admin panel.

For more detailed instructions, check out the official documentation:

• Using Symbols, Emojis, and Special Characters in Confluence
• Using Custom Emojis to Describe Issues in Jira

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👉 My Use Case for Confluence with Custom Emojis

First, let's talk about knowledge bases. I like to add software-based labels to my articles and gather them all together using the label macro on the main page. On this main page, I describe what the software is and add its icon as a custom emoji in the title. This example is demonstrated on a demo page, created with the help of Atlassian Intelligence. I used only one example here but I actually use this method for various software articles, including Zoom, Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, Figma, Miro, etc.

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The second example involves my own spaces where I manage all my Atlassian documentation. Similar to the previous example, I categorize documentation for each configuration by product, using custom emojis for easy identification. This example was also created with Atlassian Intelligence, but the core idea is to have documentation divided and visually distinct by product.

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👉 My Use Case for Jira with regular Emojis

I really like the Checklist for Jira add-on and the Confluence action item feature, but unfortunately, you can’t use the Confluence action item in Jira issue descriptions. In instances where the issue checklist is not installed, I use a workaround by adding emojis to mark items as checked.

For example, I like to use the checkmark icon (✅) to mark something as done. I typically use it in internal comments or task descriptions that I create for myself. Additionally, I sometimes add other emojis like a question mark (❓) for items that need clarification or an 'x' (❌) to indicate tasks that have some problems or are canceled or not applicable.

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Share your experiences with emojis – how do you use them, and what benefits or challenges have you encountered?

[Joni Vanderheijden]

Love the article!

Little easter egg. The use case of using emojis to convey statuses of items is so widespread that most applications using the Atlassian editor have handy shortcuts for them:

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I dare to say my last three workplaces were very heavy on emoji usage. I think most of it was for good.

I wasn't very emoji-active at first, but now I feel like I can hardly structure a page without using any, especially when we talk about events and marketing content. Using custom emojis and icons helps me present some activities better and make them more engaging and fun.

Some examples may be:

Eventing: adding a custom emoji with your event logo as a page emoji makes navigation even quicker.

Section and page trees: here emojis make obvious the topic of this page tree + give a clear view of what is Done/Released vs what is not.

It makes team updates fun and entertaining 🎉

Of course, everything is a matter of moderation and fine balance, so we need to carefully consider our emoji usage at the workplace and not make a total mess :)

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I started out using a lot of custom emojis to get around features I thought were lacking in Confluence. For example, I uploaded a bunch of corporately-colored number images to use for steps to get around not being able to insert things within a numbered list.

I used them for some other purposes too, but, then, we decided to use a 3rd-party app to generate output of our space and that app doesn't support custom emojis. Luckily, Atlassian has fixed some of the numbered list issues, but a lot of time was wasted.

I do like the idea of using emojis to make content more engaging, though. 

[Amanda Barber]

I use emojis more often in Slack but I try to bring them in when they fit in Confluence as well. One activity I really like to do with my teams is a User Manual (I use Khe Hy's template, but Atlassian's playbook has one, too!) In our User Manuals, we have a spot to share our favorite emojis and what they mean to us. It helps avoid confusion. 🙈