About Checkmark Symbols
This is a paired collection rather than a list. ✓ and ✗, ✔ and ✘, ✅ and ❌ are three matched sets of tick and cross at increasing weight, and using a matched pair is what makes a list readable — a light tick next to a heavy cross reads as inconsistency rather than as contrast.
The Three Weights
✓ ✗ are the light pair. They are thin line glyphs that sit comfortably inside running text without interrupting it, and they are the right choice when the list is prose rather than a table.
✔ ✘ are the heavy pair — the same marks drawn bold. They stand out in a scanned list and hold up next to bold headings.
✅ ❌ are the emoji pair: a white tick in a green box and a red cross. They are the loudest option and the only pair that will still be green and red no matter how you style the surrounding text.
The Box Forms
☑ is a ticked checkbox and 🗹 a bolder version of the same. These read as a completed item in a to-do list rather than as a bare approval mark, which is a slightly different statement.
❎ is a cross in a green box, which makes it the odd one out — green normally signals approval, so it reads ambiguously and is best avoided where the meaning matters.
Mixing Weights Is the Common Mistake
The failure case is pairing ✅ with ✗, or ✔ with ✗. One is an emoji with fixed colour and the other a thin text glyph, so a list built from them looks accidental. Pick a weight and stay in it for the whole list.
If a name field rejects emoji, the four text marks — ✓ ✔ ✗ ✘ — pass where ✅ and ❌ will not, and they take the colour of the text around them. For a longer status row rather than a single mark, the filled and hollow pairs among the shape symbols work the same way and extend to more than two states.