Let’s face it: Chat-based communication can be a bit… boring. 😴 But we built illumy to change that.
Not only is illumy super fast and super secure, we’ve also incorporated lots of ways to convey meaning beyond just words—animated gifs (giphys), images, emojis, reactions, and all kinds of text formatting. Combine these, and your digital conversations become a whole lot more like your live, in-person ones.
Here are our favorite ways to add depth and meaning to your text-based conversations on illumy.
show excitement with a giphy
Digital natives will be familiar with giphys. Giphy integration on illumy allows you to easily insert gifs into your chats—just like on Android, iPhone, and social media apps.
Right now, the option is only native on the web experience. Simply click the GIF icon near the Send Message button to bring up a gif list, enter a search term, and choose from an endlessly scrolling list of hilarious, fun, or touching animated gifs. On mobile, you can share giphys by downloading them to your device, and then tapping the Add Photo/File button to the left of the message field.
Giphys are perfect for saying you’re excited without, ya know, saying you’re excited.
emphasize with italics
Ever find yourself putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable? It happens to the best of us. The reason you read that sentence that way (wrongly 😉) is italics. They’re a great tool for emphasizing something textually in a way that sounds like you’re modulating your voice.
It’s possible to change the whole meaning of a sentence with emphasis. Take the phrase “I didn’t say he stole the money.”
- “I didn’t say he stole the money.”
- “I didn’t say he stole the money.”
- “I didn’t say he stole the money.”
They all mean different things. Italics make it easier for the reader to understand what you’re really trying to say.
communicate what’s important with bold text
Everyone knows someone who just doesn’t fully read an email if it’s longer than a few sentences. And how did you get them to pay attention? If you’re like us, you probably learned to trim your text, email at certain times, and to draw their attention to the important bits by bolding the text.
Bold font is great for calling out the part of a message you don’t want the reader to miss. A key due date, an appointment time, a file name, etc.—bold covers all your bases. The trick to making bold text work? Use it sparingly so that it actually means something.
convey emotion with emoji
If you love emojis as much as we do, you know how useful they are at conveying emotion. You might not even be able to describe this emotion 🥺 in words, but you get it—instinctively. Because it’s an instant depiction of a complex feeling.
Emoji might even be better than communicating in person. You can’t literally turn purple and sprout horns 😈 in real life. (Though that would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?)
respond quickly with reactions
Sometimes a message doesn’t need a reply, but you don’t want to leave the person hanging. What do you do? We like reactions in these situations. Reactions are the same as liking something or upvoting it, but illumy allows you to use any emoji (or all of them, if that’s your mood) to acknowledge the message without typing a thing.
You can use the vanilla reactions: 👍 or 🙂, but we say: Go crazy, and use ones like
🤪 or 😤 or 😱—maybe even 🤡.
What are your favorite ways of communicating nonverbally? Do you lean hard into emojis, or are you more of a giphy stan? Or all of the above? Shout out to us—and be sure to use LOTS of emojis, gifs, reactions, bold, and italics: @illumyinc on all platforms.
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
