A Study on Emotion Classification and Design Elements of Mobile Emoticons - Based on Characters of LINE, Mobile Messenger -

This paper identifies and classifies mobile messenger emoticons according to their characteristics and the emotions they evoke. James Russell, proposed the "circumplex model of affect" as a method to classify emotions. The model does not classify emotions linguistically; instead, emotions are situated in a two-dimensional space. His method is used to formulate a new classification for mobile messenger emoticons. First, a survey was conducted targeting users of LINE, a mobile messenger. LINE's emoticons were shown to the targeted users who were then asked to choose emotions representative of the emoticon from those within the standard eight categories by Russell. The results obtained from the survey were then applied to the Russell's model and graph patterns analyzed and classified into 12 groups of emoticons. Finally, data calculated using the Multiple Response Analysis were analyzed to determine the design elements the subjects looked at when deciding on the emotion evoked by each emoticon. According to the results, the percentage of people who judged facial expressions and body motion as influential design elements was 81.2% and 75.5%, respectively. On the other hand, 44% of the people considered effects elements as influential, which is considerably less than the percentage for the previous two elements.