This really stood out for me: 'We also think it is beneficial to show instead of tell wherever possible. We recommend using icons, images, and GIFs to keep it visually engaging and provide visual signposts — helping readers quickly navigate to the details that are important to them.'

We know that things like bulleted lists, headings, and paragraph structure can have a massive impact on readability... and I think those visual touches go even further.

Of course, just using icons doesn't do anything (And can make it worse), but if they are relevant, then it adds another layer of data. +1 on images and Gifs - I find it much easier to evaluate a project if I have some idea of what it looks like (Assumign it has a UI).

They're easier to read than plain text explanations for architectural layouts/customer journeys but easier to modify than images and GIFs.

Also natively supported in many flavours of markdown like Gitlab.

[1] https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid