short note on emoji text alternative variations

Emojis

Emojis are derived from Unicode symbols

Unicode symbols do not have inbuilt text alternatives. They are exposed in the browser accessibility tree as a text symbol:

The text alternatives for Unicode symbols are usually contained within a text file in screen reading software’s program files directory. For example the JAWS 2021 file for (English language) descriptions of Unicode symbols on my machine is C:\ProgramData\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\2021\SETTINGS\SymbolDescriptions\SymbolDescriptions.enu.txt

Note in SymbolDescriptions.enu.txt

This file contains descriptions for characters/symbols defined by the Unicode standard that are not already spoken by speech synthesizers.
The descriptions specified in this document are for single, stand-alone symbols.
Descriptions for alphabetical, numeric, and basic punctuation symbols should not be included.
These descriptions are processed as the very last step before a text string is sent to the speech synthesizer.
They will override any other previous processing such as the JAWS dictionary or punctuation symbol processing.
Note: these descriptions are not synthesizer specific.

People ask why emojis are presented as symbols in speech to text output rather than the text alternative.

This comment from the JAWS file may offer a clue:

These descriptions are processed as the very last step before a text string is sent to the speech synthesizer.

What can be inferred from this comment is that what we are presented with in a screen reader’s speech viewer is the output prior to the step where the text is processed and sent to the speech synthesizer.

VoiceOver (iOS) acts the same way, it announces an emoji “grinning face with smiling eyes and sweat drop” but displays the symbol 😅 in its speech viewer:

differences

The following table has examples of some (of the many) emojis and how they are described in text by some popular screen readers. Note that there are differences in how they are described in some cases:

• “grinning face” is also “beaming face”
• “beaming face” is also a “smiling face”
• “open mouth” is described by JAWS/Narrator but not by NVDA/VoiceOver
• “big eyes” are described by NVDA/VoiceOver but not by JAWS/Narrator
• “cold sweat” is “sweat” and also “sweat drop”

Do the differences matter?

The differences don’t matter to me (but I am just one and not the intended consumer), as I usually experience just the symbol. Reading the text descriptions is useful though as quite often I have no idea what the symbols are meant to represent. It is also true that emoji’s take on different meanings in different contexts and to different people. For example I thought 🤙 meant “no worries” but its description is “call me hand”, what do I know 🤷

further reading

• Symbol text descriptions in JAWS
• Symbol text descriptions in NVDA

I get a shaky start to Tuesday
Sweat stains on bus windows
I don't want ruin my coat but
That's just the way it goes
"Cheer up you fuckin' bastard!"
That's all I heard him say
St George's flag on white van
This is the human race
This is the human race
UKIP and your disgrace
Chopped heads on London streets
All you zombies tweet, tweet, tweet
These wheels are turning tricks
This bus is full of pricks
8 hours of Gedling Council fuck your life
It's spare room hassle
Dead weight is living flesh
We are no longer spesh
These grips that pull my hair
A life not lived 'cause I don't care
This is the human race
UKIP and your disgrace
Chopped heads on London streets
All you zombies tweet, tweet, tweet
Well I just bit half a mine
Throw myself on the Metroline
We 'ad to walk back from the train
With the Stella kicking in my brain
Well I just bit half a mine
Throw myself on the Metroline
When I walk back from the train
With the Stella kicking in my brain