Facebook users worldwide will soon have more options than the Like button to choose from when responding to posts on the site.
Late last year, the company announced Facebook Reactions as a Like button alternative that comes in the form of six emoji with the following sentiments: angry, sad, wow, haha, yay and love. While the effort was first tested in Spain and Ireland, and then trickled it out to Chile, the Philippines, Portugal and Colombia, Reactions is finally headed to the U.S. and the rest of the world in the “next few weeks,” according to a Bloomberg report.
The report notes that Facebook worked closely with sociologists to select images that carefully express certain emotions. In addition to offering reactions that may be more appropriate to use in certain situations — i.e. if a Facebook user’s pet died, the Like button was the only option to express non-verbal emotion — the company wanted to provide images people would feel comfortable and eager to use.
While the report didn’t detail when exactly the feature will roll out to everyone, Facebook chief product manager Chris Cox said the team has taken measures not to rush the process.
“We roll things out very carefully,” he said. “And that comes from a lot of lessons learned.”