Emojis - a useful tool for categorization?

Feedback & Ideas
1

I’ve read various threads on the inadequacies of categorization, and found Monzo’s responses to be a little frustrating, especially comments like “you can use emoji”. I’m a grown-up!

But, wait! Maybe emoji do have the potential to be a useful tool for categorizing transactions. They are rich in what they represent. Their graphical nature means that they allow a UI to easily present a large number to choose between. I’ve maybe been a little harsh in dismissing them as a toy. :confused:

So, I decided to have a play (on Android). I started by trying to classify a bunch of historical transactions. 7 taps per transaction was enough to get a teeny-weeny little emoji that I could barely see in the transaction list alongside the nice clear icon for the vendor.

So what can I do now? I can search for transactions with an emoji :smiley:. I can’t summarize the total spent :disappointed_relieved: I can’t view a list of each emoji with total spent :sob: I can’t set targets for transactions tracked against each emoji :scream:

I’m wondering what the app would be like if emoji were used as a parallel form of categorization; each transaction gets a high level category, plus as many emoji as the user wants (in my case, exactly one). You could set targets by emoji, as well as by category. The app would learn your normal classifications and set them up in new transactions. Updating the emoji in existing transactions would be no harder than for updating the category, ideally using an custom UI rather than dropping through to the phone’s keyboard. Ideally, add a “review recent transactions” facility that allows you to step through each unreviewed transaction and make changes without needing to return to the list between each one.

In summary - maybe using emoji as subcategories would be a viable option with a bit more app integration. They’d have the advantage that you could still do analysis on how people categorised against emoji, especially if users were pushed towards using an initial palette that covered most of the popular bases (ie health, coffee, snacks, dining out, drinks, etc). And even grown-ups might be persuaded that they look cool :rofl:

6 Likes
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I think emojis look great visually and they’re quick to add/ view at a glance! I got the idea for emojis on here and was annoyed at myself for not thinking about it sooner- I think it’s definitely a great idea (and richer subcategories, don’t know how feasible that is though). I use the SwiftKey keyboard (started using it when I had an android phone, since text prediction was even worse than iPhone’s autocorrect) and it remembers my typing habits/patterns per app too so the coffee emoji comes up straightaway when I edit my notes :joy:

Slightly off topic but for anyone complaining about emojis, I think they are so convenient and help modify a sentence with just one tap, so whatever visual cues you miss out on without face-to-face convo can be conveyed with emojis :clap:t3: they contain a wealth of linguistic info
eg. Sure :slight_smile:️; Sure :roll_eyes:; and Sure :ok_hand:t3: all have different connotations and I honestly appreciate it because in the dark days of Nokia phones you were left guessing at whether the other party was mad or okay with it or simply ran out of free texts :joy:

3 Likes
3

This type of functionality is a great idea, thanks for taking the time to explain it fully :heart_eyes:

I think you’re going to like one of the upcoming sneak peaks :slight_smile:

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Sure :neutral_face:

Sure :upside_down_face:

Sure :rofl:

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5

If I could laugh instead of like the post I would have.

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How do emojis interact with a screen reader? Are they disability equality compliant? I’ve wondered this with people using the M emoji :mondo: here, do screen readers ‘read’ this properly and where people use it in place of whole words, would a blind person understand its use?

3 Likes
7

Tbh I haven’t quite figured out which of the two :joy: and :rofl: should be used, there are too many options now lol!

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Well you have :joy: joy or :rofl: rofl but I like :joy_cat:

1 Like
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I think people’s recent emojis say a lot about them :eyes: I quibble a lot on Facebook, which makes for a ton of recent emojis like :sleepy::joy::roll_eyes::upside_down_face::weary::unamused::thinking::no_mouth: which basically indicate “lol your argument is so ridiculous/absurd” with various other connotations.

The classic is the “I find it funny how…” with a :thinking:
:joy::clap:t3:

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:eyes: is my fave no matter what you can always just drop :eyes:

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11

Easily trumped…

:herb::eyes::herb:

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Peepin tom :joy_cat: o_O

1 Like