Considerations for Emoji and
Icon Usage in Product
Interfaces and Documentation
Speaker: Wendy Wang
Company: IBM
Track:
CS8
Localization World Montreal, October 28, 2016
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About the Authors
• Louis Huang is a Globalization Architect of IBM globalization
projects. He has 15 years of experience in globalization testing,
project management and working with global teams
• Vincent Chen is a Globalization Project Manager in IBM China
Development Lab. He has 11 years of experience in software
globalization testing and project management. In addition,
currently he is also the Globalization Testing Architect and own
the globalization testing process of IBM
• Wendy Wang is a Globalization Project Manager in IBM China
Development Lab. She has 10 years of experience in managing
software globalization and translation verification testing. She
also actively participates in many company innovation activities
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About IBM Global Shared Services Center
• A Global world-class Shared Services Center (GSSC) to provide
comprehensive end-to-end globalization and accessibility services
Website: http://gssc.ibm.com
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What is Emoji and history?
• The first emoji was created in 1998 in Japan by
Shigetaka Kurita
• The word emoji comes from Japanese 絵 (e ≅
picture) 文 (mo ≅ writing) 字 (ji ≅ character)
• Emoji are pictographs (pictorial symbols) that
are typically presented in a colorful cartoon
form
• They represent things such as faces, weather,
vehicles and buildings, food and drink, animals
and plants, or icons that represent emotions,
feelings, or activities
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Emoji in Unicode standard
• From 2010 onwards, some emoji character sets have
been incorporated into Unicode, which helps to
maintain industry standards for characters used in text
messages, websites, and mobile devices.
• Most major technology companies use this standard for
their hardware and software
Source: Wikipedia
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A Fun Test
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Chart source: GroupLens Research at the University of Minnesota
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How cultural differences impact emoji
interpretation
• Studies show that Western cultures primarily examine the mouth
region of the face to determine emotion, whereas Eastern cultures
examine the eye region more
• Other fact: sometimes emoji interpretation can be just subjective
based on individual’s background and experience
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How cultural differences impact emoji
interpretation
• Some emojis are specific to Japanese culture:
• A bowing businessman: A person bowing deeply and used to express a sincere
apology, or to request a large favor. While others may interpret it as a person is
doing push-ups
• A person with folded hands: Meaning please or thank you in Japanese culture
while other common uses for this character include prayer/praying hands,
or a high-five
• Or a group of emoji representing popular foods such as ramen noodles: while by
definition could be any bowl containing hot food
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Emojis display differently on different device
types
Photo source: GroupLens Research at the University of Minnesota
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How these differences impact interpretation ?
Source: GroupLens, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
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How these differences impact interpretation ?
Source: GroupLens
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Suggestions for Translating Content with Emoji
and Why
• Do not translate and leave it as-is:
• Culture sensitive
• Misinterpret original meaning
• Use tag or fly-over with standard Unicode
description
• Translate the description if needed
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Definition of Icon
• Icon: a graphic symbol that represents some real, fantasy or
abstract motive, entity or action
• For example:
Source: Wikipedia
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Considerations for ICON Usage
 IBM Globalization Leadership team has some considerations
toward IBM software translating content with icon:
 The meaning of an icon can change dramatically from one
culture to another
 If the original meaning of the icon is not recognized in other
cultures, it may face resistance or even worse if it has an
unpopular meaning
 Icons with flags, body parts, crosses, stars and crescents, need to
be carefully designed and used
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Considerations for ICON Usage
 An example of the mailbox icon
 It is a horizontal box on a stick in the rural USA, but is very
different in shape and position in urbanized European territories
 Good thing is, such an icon can be learned through time so
people recognize it better as they see more
Reference: https://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/index.html
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Recommendations for ICON Usage
• If software product wants to include ICON in the
translating content, there are some suggestions
toward its usage:
• aim for widespread acceptance
• allow for icon substitution
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Summary
 What’s Emoji and Emoji in Unicode standard
 Cultural impact and differences in device implementation of emoji
 Suggestions for emoji usage in UI or documentation
 What’s icon and things to be considered for usage
 Recommendations for icon usage in translating content
 Additionally, emoticons and analytics
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Definition of Emoticon
• Emoticon (emotion + icon): a series of text characters (typically
punctuation or symbols) that is meant to represent a facial
expression or gesture that sometimes when viewed sideways in
Western countries
;-)
:(
:)
• An emoticon denotes your emotional state while an emoji is
broader than emoticons and includes pictures of animals,
transportation, and others
Source: Wikipedia
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Emoticons and Analytics
 The IBM Watson™ Tone Analyzer uses linguistic analysis to detect three
types of tones from written text: emotions, social tendencies, and
language/writing style
 Emoticons and punctuations are newly added features
Link: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson/2016/05/watson-tone-analyzer-api-goes-ga-improved-models/
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Let’s see some tests…
 Input: I am not happy
 Input: I am not happy : ( : (
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Let’s see more tests…
 Input: I am not happy !!!!
 Input: I am not happy : ( : ( !!!!
Link: https://tone-analyzer-demo.mybluemix.net/?cm_mc_uid=53237172874914623437651&cm_mc_sid_50200000=/
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Terima Kasih
Merci
Indonesian and Malay
Hebrew
French
Arabic
Hindi
Obrigado
Brazilian
Portuguese
Sinhala
Chinese
Traditional script
Gracias
Spanish
go raibh maith agat
Gaelic
Grazie
Italian
Thank You
Russian
English
Salamat
Tamil
Chinese
Simplified script
Korean
Japanese
Thai
Tagalog
Danke
German
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