Read on Twitter
Thread, 1 of 9: I want to talk about this idea of being deliberate with emojis a bit more. You may want to read my previous thread on emojis first. Again, I have no answers, just thoughts and questions as a screen reader and emoji user. https://twitter.com/thefreeddove/status/1285356725130768385
What, specifically, do we mean when we ask people not to include too many emojis in their tweets? Every example I see of this call includes the example of the exact same emoji used repeatedly or between words. But what happens when every emoji included is a different one?
For me, every emoji I tap is deliberate. Because the screen reader reads a description for every emoji with space, I'd like everything read to be relevant and meaningful to what I'm trying to say. I once wrote a tweet about listening to Handel's Messiah.
And I included the emojis of each instrument I was hearing, because I love how all the elements of baroque music come together, and the harmonies. But I'm not going to tweet 25 hearts to demonstrate how much I love something, when I can write words and one or two hearts.
For me, it's about finding a balance between emojis and words, being very aware of every one. If there are two hearts there, why? Is the fact that there are two important to what is being said? Someone tweets 20 emojis; a coffee cup, flowers, fruit, smiles, clapping hands, etc,
and I'm going to listen to that like I listen to an image description because something is being said and I want to know and understand what that is as best as I can. But it's frustrating to listen to "clapping hands with skin tone" read out 20 times because
there's a space or word between each clap. Listening to a screen reader or reading a braille display is slower than sight. Some speed up the screen reader to take in more info in less time, but I can't speak to that experience because I have mine speaking slow in comparison.
But I am aware of every emoji, because every emoji is time spent listening and reading, concentration and energy. Ten completely different emojis makes sense to me. Ten of the one emoji with spaces between each does not, that's where I see the problem.
How do fellow screen reader users feel about the use of multiple different emojis in one tweet? What can be improved? VoiceOver counts repeated emojis with nothing between them as one element, but the braille display outputs the description for each instance. This needs fixing.
