Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Emoji
Raised as a usability problem by 21 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2014–2026), in 19 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2
Every issue, all time, most people first
Emoji are hard to type, search for and render, especially in terminalUnreviewed
20142026- Emoji menu is annoying to use and slows down workflow; shortcut is unknown2026-01-17
- Emoji are distracting, cumbersome to grep, and often have unclear meanings2025-11-04
- No easy way to enter emoji without typing their associated terms2025-05-27
Colored emoji clash with backgrounds and are hard to tell apartUnreviewed
20142026- Emoji look different on each platform, so tone and meaning get misread2026-01-30
- Emoji are hard to read at line height and override custom text colors2025-06-24
- Skin shade and gender variants make emojis unusable for categorizing contacts2023-07-15
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 21 complaints
- Emoji look different on each platform, so tone and meaning get misread2026-01-30
- Emoji menu is annoying to use and slows down workflow; shortcut is unknown2026-01-17
- Emoji are distracting, cumbersome to grep, and often have unclear meanings2025-11-04
- Emoji are hard to read at line height and override custom text colors2025-06-24
- No easy way to enter emoji without typing their associated terms2025-05-27
- Emoji generation is slow because it relies on a general language model2025-01-31
- Text color in the input field makes typed text hard to see2025-01-09
- Domain shows as available, then reverts to 'available for auction' if not bought immediately2024-04-21
- Scrolling through face emojis to find one takes forever2023-07-15
- Skin shade and gender variants make emojis unusable for categorizing contacts2023-07-15
- Fallback emoji is confusing and doesn't look like a handshake2021-05-05
- Emoji search uses input language, not UI language, so users must type unexpected words2021-03-11
- Emoji are annoying to type; must look up icon then copy and paste2021-02-09
- Emoji are hard to type, search for, and render properly, especially in the command line2019-12-11
- Copying the shrug emoji on iPhone needs fumbling with manual copy and paste2018-01-31
- No easy way to disable emojis; they are on by default2018-01-12
- Can't find the skeptical smiley emoji because the user doesn't know what to search for2017-05-11
- Commenter tried sliding the switch three times, gave up, and couldn't work out how to operate it2017-03-15
- Face blinks before moving, so the switch appears not to respond to clicks2017-03-15
- Colored emoji clash with backgrounds and become hard to distinguish in different contexts2015-08-02
- Confusing site; hard to tell what the project is about2014-09-11