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Emojis can give a product, website or app's content an informal, friendly personality. So there are scenarios where emojis add value to content, assuming the audience is English speaking and can see the emojis.

But what about content that must be internationalized / translated? Are the emojis likely to be misunderstood in different contexts / cultures?

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    Just my 2 cents, but if I see a company using emoji's I don't really take them seriously anymore. Mar 22, 2018 at 13:09
  • I used to think that too Gerlof until, some years ago, I noticed that Peldi from Balsamiq regularly used the smiley face emoji in his blog blog.balsamiq.com In fact, the Balsamiq logo is a smiley. It made me realize the power of emojis to add a distinct personality. Mar 22, 2018 at 13:51

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Emojis originate from Japan and are extremely popular in Asia and indeed other parts of the world.

So the short answer is yes.

However, it depends on what kind of users will be using your app. If it's a professional business context then it will likely seem unprofessional, although I believe this is gradually changing.

Edit regarding comment: If we look at this study conducted by Swiftkey which is a widely used keyboard app, we can see that the use of emojis are global. The study also provides insight into which countries are using which emojis more.

Further to this, another study states that India is the country that uses emojis the least:

India is at the other end of the scale with just 29% of Indians using emoji on a daily basis.

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  • @Rob_E Thanks, I had a sense that emojis were Asian in origin but didn't realize they were from Japan specifically. But what about other popular cultures / languages -- e.g. Arabic, Russian, Bengali, etc.? Mar 22, 2018 at 9:45
  • Edited, hope that helps. Mar 22, 2018 at 10:06

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