How Emojis can improve clarity in your daily work
In modern programming, collaboration via online version control tools is essential in ensuring quality change tracking.
The pull request (PR) is a fundamental part of being a developer in any technology (tech) organisation and this is no different with The LEGO® Group. It’s the way we get hard work merged into the code base and how quality can be ensured. Considering it’s importance, PR best practices are often overlooked. In this article I’ll explain how we tried to tackle common challenges with reporting issues, suggestions and questions in a clear and concise way.
The Challenges in PR Reviews
One of the challenges we found reviewing PRs lies in one of our strengths. We all come from different backgrounds, have different communication styles and bring different work experience. This collective consciousness ensures the small details are not missed but it can also translate into unclear understandings on whether a comment blocks a PR or is simply offering a different perspective.
We often found that when we wrote any form of written feedback, we lost the nuance that could be provided face to face, such as facial expressions and body language. This meant sometimes we lost the ability to understand how important a comment was to implement in a PR. This uncertainty slowed down developer productivity and created slower delivery cycles.
The result? A prolonged review process, potential frustration, and the risk of overlooking critical alterations.
A Picture Says a Thousand Words
With all this ambiguity, how did we ensure our intent was being received by the recipient? Enter Emoji based PR reviews.
The adage, “a picture says a thousand words,” encapsulates the essence of how emojis can remove ambiguity in text-based feedback during the PR review process.
Emojis along with written text add tone to feedback, which is something that we felt was often lost when discussions were not done in person. A simple thumbs-up might signify approval, while a fire emoji could express enthusiasm for a particularly well-executed portion of the code. These visual cues added layers of meaning that go beyond the literal interpretation of words.
Reducing Misinterpretations
Ambiguity often arose when comments lacked context or when the urgency of a suggestion was unclear. Emojis provide a quick and universally understood way to communicate the nature of the feedback. A “⚠️” emoji, for instance, signals a blocking change request, leaving no room for confusion regarding the importance and urgency of the requested modification. This visual shorthand minimised misinterpretations and ensured that feedback was prioritised and addressed quickly.
Humanising Collaboration
Coding may be at a basic level written for computers but good coding is written for other developers to understand. Emojis injected a touch of humanity into the often formal world of code reviews. A smiley face or a celebratory emoji would convey encouragement and positivity, fostering a collaborative work environment. This humanising aspect of emojis goes a long way in building a cohesive and motivated development team.
In essence, by harnessing the power of emojis, our team could transform the ambiguity of text-based feedback into a more visually expressive and transparent collaboration process, enriching the language of code review with a palette of emotions and intentions.
Implementing Emoji-Based PR Review Comments
How did we go about implementing emoji based PR feedback in practice?
Using Github we utilised pull_request_templates, if you want to do the same you can follow the next steps:
1. Create a pull_request_template.md
We began by creating a pull_request_template.md file in our various project root directory’s. This file served as a guide for contributors, ensuring that each PR came equipped with the necessary emoji annotations.
2. Provide Examples and Explanations
Within the templates, We offer examples and explanations for each emoji to provide clarity on their intended usage. This approach reduced confusion and promote consistency across the development team. More on this later..
The example that we chose was the following:
🔥 : I really like what you did here, great job!
❓ : A non-blocking question about something that is not clear
⚠️ : A blocking change request
🎨 : A non-blocking refactoring suggestions
🌱 : A non-blocking observation that is not a change request but may have be something to keep in mind for the future
3. Encourage Consistent Adoption
In the project’s contribution guidelines, we encouraged contributors to adopt the emoji-based review system consistently. This unified approach ensured that feedback was not only informative but also easily digestible. It also made sense to roll this out to all our repositories to keep consistency amongst them all and ensure consistency.
4. Integrate into the Workflow
As contributors submit PRs, we encouraged them to use the specified emojis in their comments. This system not only added a touch of playfulness to the review process but also served as a visual cue for the nature and urgency of each comment.
Learnings and challenges
After trialing emoji based feedback, we came to the conclusion that there is of course no silver bullet when trying to solve ambiguity in PRs. We did however find the use of them was generally well received and brightened up our reviews. When our team members use them consistently, we’ve found the reviewal process seems to go quicker but understandably it’s a difficult measure.
One difficulty we started looking into was with one particular Github rule: “Require conversation resolution before merging.” This has split the team somewhat with some members wishing to avoid using 🔥 as it needs to be resolved by the code author, while others continue to use it seeing it as a nice problem to have. The argument for adding it still being that it’s a nice thing to read and that dismissing the feedback is not a big deal. The argument against being that it gives the author one more thing to have to do to get their PR merged.
Another challenge has been staying consistent with the emoji’s. Simply adding the template to our repositories is not enough. We need to actively encourage our team to use the right emoji in the right place. What emoji’s won’t help with is addressing differing opinions on what is truly a necessary change and what can be an improvement for later.
With the above learnings and challenges we have decided to continue using Emojis in PRs as we found the benefits outweigh the difficulties.
Removing Ambiguity in PR Reviews was originally published in Engineers @ The LEGO Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.