Signals Colour, type and surface
Emoji used as an icon set
- Category
- Colour, type and surface
- Direction
- Pushes the score up
- Weight
- +14
What it is
The visual defaults, applied unedited. Looks are the weakest evidence in the whole set. Anyone can reach for a gradient on purpose, which is why craft damps this entire category.
How it is weighted
14 points puts this in the upper tier — strong evidence, though the curve saturates, so it means far more on a clean page than as the tenth tell on a page already covered in them.
What to do about it
Replace emoji with real SVG icons. Emoji render differently per platform, can't be styled or themed, and read as decoration to screen readers.
Where it fires
Of the homepages we scan as worked examples, this signal fired on one:
- craigslist.org 14/100 — 5 emoji in the visible copy, doing the job of an icon library.