Hi, Data Center community
Today I wanted to shine a spotlight ✨ on the emoji experience, available in Confluence versions 8.0+, and hear more about how you use emojis at work in the comments. Is a 👍 to your boss efficient or passive-aggressive? Read on!
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First, learn how Confluence users can access the emoji functionality they’ve grown to love
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Then understand the power and impact of emojis as studied in Adobe’s The Future of Creativity: 2022 U.S. Emoji Trend Report
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Finally, join the discussion about emojis' place in business in the comments below
A brief history of emojis in Confluence
Throughout the Confluence 8 series of releases, we’ve delivered a wealth of emoji functionality for you and your team(s) to enjoy. Let’s look back to where we began:
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In Confluence 8.0, emojis are introduced for the first time! This allowed users to celebrate, empathize, react, and more. Users can now browse and insert emojis directly from the editor toolbar into their pages and page comments, promoting more effective and expressive communication.
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In Confluence 8.1, users got access to over 3000 emojis to choose from. With the latest set of twemojis (Twitter’s emoji catalog), emoji categorization, and a skin tone selector, making emoji communication more inclusive for all.
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In Confluence 8.2 we made it easier for users to find emojis with the emoji autocomplete feature. This feature predicts the emoji you’re searching for as you type its name or shortcut, helping you quickly and easily discover new emojis and add them to your pages, blog posts, and comments.
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In Confluence 8.4 we unleashed the custom emojis! Create and upload custom emojis to Confluence and give users the ability to accurately express themselves. We can’t wait to see what emojis your team comes up with.
Here at Atlassian we’re enthusiastic about emojis and stand by the importance of the emoji experience. We believe the emoji experience is important in allowing users the ability to express themselves in a way that feels authentic. Emojis are more than a simple image, in fact, they may play a larger impact than we think. So now let’s talk a bit about the power and impact of emojis!
The impact of emojis: An emoji study 📖
The Future of Creativity: 2022 U.S. Emoji Trend Report surveyed 5,000 US emoji users to learn when, how, and why they use emojis and their impact in and out of the workplace. According to the study:
“Emojis give us the ability to convey emotion, tone, and mood through just a few taps on our keyboards. When words alone aren’t enough, emojis do a lot of the heavy lifting.”
Drive credibility and likeability
Emojis have become an inescapable part of our online communication, and they play an important role in the workplace, too. According to the study, the majority of US emoji users like when people use emoji at work and believe that emojis have a positive impact on likability and credibility. Emojis help convey emotions and add a human touch to digital conversations, so it comes as no surprise that when people use emoji, they are more relatable and approachable to others.
Increase Productivity
Beyond making us more likable, using emoji can increase productivity. Using emojis at work can help users quickly share ideas, make team decision-making more efficient, and can reduce the need for meetings and calls. In a fast-paced work environment where time is of the essence, emojis can eliminate misunderstandings and streamline communication. For example, a simple thumbs-up 👍 can indicate agreement or approval (to some), saving the need for a lengthy response. This efficiency can lead to faster decision-making and smoother collaboration among team members.
Emoji and inclusivity
Emojis are important in creating an inclusive work environment. The use of emojis can show support 🤗, offer encouragement 👍, and help users foster more empathy 🩷, understanding, and connection. Emojis are more than text symbols, they are extensions of how emoji users want and need to show up when communicating with the world around them.
In fact, the majority of U.S. emoji users surveyed believe emojis have the power to influence change, from promoting unity and respect to furthering important cultural and societal conversations, and can help raise awareness of diverse groups of people such as people of different cultures, abilities, disabilities, etc. With hundreds of emojis to choose from, users have the power to emoji in the way that feels just right, and display who they are as individuals.
Here at Atlassian, we’re working to ensure greater inclusive representation. In Confluence 8.1, we introduced a skin tone selector for more authentic emojis, and with Confluence 8.4, users can add custom emojis to even further express their identity, which, according to the survey, the majority of U.S. emoji users agree that additional customization options help make emojis more inclusive.
Emojis work as a powerful tool to express ourselves and create a tone or emotion that otherwise couldn't be achieved through text alone.
An emoji experiment 🔬
Discover for yourself how emojis can influence the tone of a message. Check out the sentences below, written with and without using emojis, and reflect on if the use of emojis increases your understanding of the messages, or influences your emotion.
Sentence with no emojis:
“I’ve received your work on the project. The report was interesting and unique. Thanks for your creative approach and prompt submission."
Without emojis, this paragraph leaves room for different interpretations because of its vague and subjective language. For instance, "interesting and unique" could be interpreted positively or negatively, depending on the reader's perspective. Similarly, "creative approach" could be seen as a compliment or a criticism, depending on how the reader perceives creativity in the context of the project.
Let’s try that sentence again, this time using emojis:
“I’ve received your work on the project. The report was interesting and unique. 😁 Thanks for your creative approach and prompt submission 👍."
This time we’ll try a question and answer!
Q: Hey how are you? Are you handling your workload okay?
Sentence with no emojis:
A: I’m okay
Let’s try that again, using emojis:
I’m okay 😁
While subtle, with the use of emojis this sentence interpretation may change. Especially for co-workers building relationships while working remotely, the addition of emojis helps indicate tone. Simply adding a smiling face or thumbs-up emoji can indicate enthusiasm and appreciation, and the clapping emoji denotes a job well done.
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With that being said, we know not all organizations are receptive to emojis. It's important to understand and adhere to the communication standards established within your workplace. As we’ve eluded to in this post, emojis sometimes carry multiple meanings. While a thumbs-up might signify understanding or approval to you, it can commonly be understood as passive-aggressive, especially with the younger generation.
So, what do you think? How could you implement these practices into your own Confluence work? How do you feel about emojis? I’ve added my “most commonly used” Slack emojis in the comments below, what’s yours?
If you’d like to learn more about emojis in the workplace, check out the Atlassian Work Check podcast episode Do emojis belong in the workplace? 👍👎
