Expand emojis to reflect the diversity of ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability of your user base
Emoji set is limited and almost exclusively white and male. This doesn't reflect the make up of most modern workplaces and certainly doesn't reflect the make up of your global user base.
Jonathan Chapman, Clifford Chance LLP
shared this idea
Thank you for your feedback! The team is currently working on a significant update to add a broader and more diverse selection of emojis to Teams. We will share an update as soon as one is available.
110 comments
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Christian
commented
Do you have an internal shortcut so in the meanwhile we can just do it via text? In Slack, you can see whether any emoji is personalizable by appending ":skin-tone-5" to the shortcut. Here's a quick chart:
Product | Shortcut | Personalization
Slack. | :thumbs-up:| :thumbs-up::skin-tone-5:
Teams. | (yes) | MANY OPTIONS HERE (yes::skin-tone-5) , (yes)(5) , (yes::brown), (yes-I-have-melanin) -
Kyle W.
commented
This may have been said already, but it's also important not to default to a white person's hand for the standard "hand raise" feature. Having a more diverse emoji set to switch to is great, but it's still racist to make the default option white. White people will be fine if they have to fish around for a different color emoji for a while.
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Karina S.
commented
Given the remote environment during this time, representation of inclusive emoji's is more important than ever.
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Doug Kalish
commented
Add emojis to Microsoft Teams chats that offer gender and skin-tone variants so that they are more inclusive and more empowering. This functionality has already been developed and launched for Yammer…we want this for MS Teams as well. This would promote diversity in the workplace as well as in users’ personal lives.
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louise
commented
this should not be something we should need to vote for in 2021 - Please update Microsoft !
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Michele Broadbent
commented
Hello, it's 2021, time to move with the times guys and have emoji's that better represent the people using them! Would also be nice to see an actual response from Microsoft Teams to any of the requests for the same on here!!!!
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Taylor
commented
This is so important and should be moved to the top of the list for Teams to accomplish.
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Anonymous
commented
Please make it possible to change skin tone in emojis, especially in the quick reply emojis in the Teams text thread.
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Mike
commented
Please add more diverse skin tones on the emojis. Students use Microsoft Teams every day. Everything else has diverse skin tone except this. I just started using it today and it was the first thing I noticed.
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Jessica Taylor
commented
I agree! As a white person I think that this is racist and will not continue to participate in the quiet aggression that underlies this level of ignorance!
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Adrienne
commented
It is also an option available as a standard feature in Apple apps, on many emoji keyboards and in Zoom. It would make Teams more culturally competent.
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Colina Wright
commented
As a BAME member of staff I tend not to use the "thumbs up" and other emojis in Teams regardless of whether I agree; I know it's simply an icon but if I can customise my emojis on my phone to reflect who I am, I'd like this to be the case when communicating across my organisation and beyond. It means something to me being in the minority at my Students' Union, why should I not be myself... it's sometimes the little things that matter. If "black lives matter" then perhaps this is a simple gesture you can amend to reflect that they matter to you too.
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Anonymous
commented
This is really important - the default skin tone for me is 'white' and I don't know how to change that default. It reinforces a negative stereotype that other skin tone are variants rather than the norm. Please allow the option to set a default skin tone, or at least make the default grey or a non-realistic colour.
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Tracey Grose
commented
Be culturally responsive and add skin tones to the emojis in teams.
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Rainier Ferrell
commented
More than 1 skin tone for emojis
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Anonymous
commented
We need emojis that have brown and black skin tones! thumbs up and other emojis should not just reflect white skin. I know on every social media platform you are given choices of color. Microsoft needs to get with it.
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Anonymous
commented
I would like MS to reflect diversity in their emojis - If whatsapp can do it I'm sure MS is capable!
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Melissa Hitt
commented
Please increase the skin tone options for emojis to go beyond just pale skin tones
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Anonymous
commented
Please increase the emoji skin tone options
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Anonymous
commented
Include diverse skin colours in the emoji panel so as to be more representative of users.