The governing body of emojis（表情符号）released a new group of the graphic images that convey human expressions and add other visual context to text communications.
Among them are a face holding back tears and hands making a heart shape. But big tech companies including Alphabet Inc. 's Google, Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc. have also been updating their existing emojis, adding new visual polish, animation（动画制作）, flexibility and sounds.
"We spent a lot of time thinking about how we can make what somebody is saying resonate（共鸣）more, and be emotionally more clear and more present for people, " said Loredana Crisan, vice president of messaging experiences at Facebook's Messenger, which introduced 31 emojis with sounds in July.
Technology companies' efforts to improve emojis come while opportunities for in-person communication remain limited as many people continue to work from home. That has increased the role of not only videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom but of emojis as well, according to observers.
"There's always been a visual component to our communication, "said Paul Hunt, typeface designer and font developer at Adobe Inc. , which is a member of the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit corporation that serves as gatekeeper for the creation of emojis and other characters. "And when we're using only text, then things like tone of voice and gesture and facial expressions get lost. So using emojis as a communication tool can help to reintroduce some of that visual emotional content. "
Emojis still have many potential evolutions to experience, designers who work on them say. "That includes the ways that people find and use them", said Jennifer Daniel, creative director of emoji at Google and chair of the Unicode emoji-development subcommittee. "It is not just about adding new emojis or changing new emojis, "Ms. Daniel said. "It is about the whole experience. "
