Hey LinkedIn Team: Can We Opt for Camel Case in Hashtag Suggestions?

As someone who runs multiple digital properties, it is crucial for me to be on social media and active on each platform where my audience discusses and engages. As part of this endeavor, I am very active on LinkedIn too, having used it for more than 16 years. I generally discuss topics such as accessibility, content marketing, leadership, etc., on my personal profile. Additionally, I run a few pages related to accessibility, community initiatives, and other niche markets.
As a marketer, I understand the importance of using hashtags in social media content for broader reach. I learned about hashtags more than a decade ago when I was actively involved in digital marketing and workshops. I carried the lessons from my digital marketing days into the world of accessibility, implementing best practices wherever they apply.
Recently, during a training program on accessible social communications, I came across the term “camel case” for hashtags. This was the first time I encountered this term, and despite reading about it, I did not grasp its meaning. While I understood the implications of not using camel case for hashtags on screen readers, there was a cognitive challenge.
A friend and co-presenter then explained that I needed to imagine a camel. Being late blind, I managed this part easily. He then asked me to visualize the camel with its long neck and hump, illustrating how it goes up and down like a mountain. That’s how camel case hashtags are visualized. With this explanation, the concept became clear in my mind, and the thought process fell into place.
In social media, when we are advised to use camel case hashtags for accessibility, it means using camel case when there is more than one word. For example, for the term “digital accessibility,” we use the hashtag “#DigitalAccessibility.”
While posting an article on LinkedIn, I realized that LinkedIn offers hashtag suggestions when typing a keyword with the hash symbol. For a long time, I relied on these suggestions. However, when I recently wrote a post in a Word document and added hashtags manually, I noticed that while my hashtags were in camel case, the hashtags suggested by LinkedIn did not follow this best practice. In fact, they attempted to change camel case hashtags.
Camel Case vs. Lowercase: Does LinkedIn Care About Accessible Hashtags?
Camel Case vs. Lowercase: Does LinkedIn Care About Accessible Hashtags? Transcript
Hello everyone, my name is Monica, and as a UX/UI designer, I frequently share content on social media. Hashtags are a powerful tool—they help reach broader audiences and boost engagement. But recently, I encountered an intriguing concept: camel case for hashtags.Take a look at this example. On LinkedIn, my hashtag #AccessibilityMatters follows the camel case convention, where the first letter of each word is capitalized. This approach enhances readability and ensures better accessibility for screen reader users. However, LinkedIn’s hashtag suggestions often disregard this best practice, presenting hashtags in all lowercase, like #accessibilitymatters.
Interestingly, when I revisited LinkedIn later, I noticed that the platform had stopped suggesting hashtags altogether. When I typed “#AccessibilityMatters,” there were no recommendations. This change made me wonder: Could it be a response to the widespread misuse of hashtags across the platform? It raises an important discussion about balancing accessibility best practices with platform-wide behavior.
As someone who prioritizes accessibility, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How do you approach camel case hashtags in your content, and what’s your take on these developments? Please share your comments and opinions!
In our next video, we’ll explore how screen readers interpret lowercase and camel case hashtags, and why the difference matters. Stay tuned!
Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, don’t forget to like and subscribe for more insights on accessibility and design. See you in the next one!
How Hashtags are read by Screen Readers?
How Hashtags are Read by Screen Readers Transcript
Hi everyone, my name is Raghavendra Satish Peri from DigitalA11y.com, and in this video, we’re going to see how hashtags are very important for screen reader users and how they behave if you don’t capitalize the first letter of your hashtag.I’m on LinkedIn, and if you give any hashtag on LinkedIn and press the down arrow in the editor region, you get suggested hashtags. When you select a suggested hashtag, the only problem is the first letter of the hashtag is never capitalized. It always appears in lowercase. In this video, we’re going to demonstrate how hashtags impact accessibility for screen reader users.I am using the NVDA screen reader on Firefox. I am on a LinkedIn post that talks about hashtags and the good and bad examples of hashtags. Let’s explore how these hashtags are read aloud.I’m navigating through some of these hashtags to demonstrate how they are spoken. For instance, one of the hashtags on the post is read as “puppy slaughter” instead of “puppy laughter” because the first letters of the words were not capitalized. At high reading speeds, screen readers misinterpret uncapitalized hashtags. This creates confusion and makes the hashtags inaccessible to users relying on screen readers.Other examples include “Susan album party” vs. “susanalbumparty” and “experts exchange” vs. “expertsexchange.” These examples highlight how the lack of capitalization affects the clarity of hashtags for screen reader users.Now, I am switching to the JAWS screen reader to demonstrate how it behaves with the same examples. As I navigate through the hashtags, you’ll notice similar issues with misinterpretation when the words in hashtags are not capitalized.The difference in how screen readers interpret these hashtags is evident, emphasizing why it is essential to capitalize the first letter of every word in a hashtag. For example, when writing “Digital Marketing,” capitalize the ‘D’ and the ‘M.’ Similarly, for “Digital Accessibility,” capitalize the ‘D’ and the ‘A’ so the screen readers can read them properly and provide the intended meaning.This is the end of the video. Thank you for watching. If you like the video, do like and subscribe.I believe this may be due to many people using incorrect hashtags across the platform. The algorithm tracks these hashtags and suggests them to users when they attempt to type. However, I feel there is an opportunity for the LinkedIn accessibility team to correct this, irrespective of whether users type hashtags incorrectly. The algorithm could auto-correct them.
As accessibility professionals and users, what are your thoughts on this? Please share your comments and opinions!