Abstract
Digital communities' spaces have been very popular through communication contents provide entertainment and usability. Emoticons provide simply emotional expressions and intension, so they weakly convey a realistic sense as they are designed by 2D graphics. However, 3D Avatars presented by 3D Computer Graphics make users interesting because of delivering senses of reality and three-dimension and amuse users because of representing their characters. It is the purpose of this study to analyze design examples of emoticons and avatars applying to personal messengers and propose the development of them. In addition, this paper researches various characteristics of emoticons and avatars for web and mobile phones, and suggests a strategy to usefully and properly apply emoticons and avatars to design.