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Re: Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?

for

From: L Snider
Date: Nov 30, 2022 12:09PM

Great question! The people I know who can't see URLs have never mentioned
this, but now I have to ask as I am curious...One thing I will say is that
you should always look at the URL if it blends together and isn't separated
by hyphens. I just saw a great example of this last week on Instagram with
a handle used, when read together, well it looked like something else! I
can't post it here as it may be flagged!

Cheers

Lisa



On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 12:08 PM Jeremy Echols < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Probably also worth noting that if you're expecting users to manually
> enter URLs regularly, you don't want the path (the bit after the domain and
> first slash) longer than a single word anyway. And even then it would be a
> poor design choice. The only time I could think of asking users to type in
> a URL manually would be in a TV or radio ad, and again in those cases you
> want something very short and simple.
>
> Power users may hack up URLs, but your everyday user should be able to get
> where they want without typing in a long URL.
>
> Regarding the original question, my gut -- not any information I have,
> mind, but just my gut -- tells me the URL itself doesn't matter for
> accessibility purposes. For readability I personally prefer hyphenation
> between words in a URL path, but hopefully your links are only rarely being
> seen "raw". And if you do need to share URLs this way, I suspect the same
> thing applies that I mentioned above, where you want a short URL whenever
> possible, even if it's just a redirect to something longer.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Steve Green
> Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2022 06:58
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
>
> While it is correct that Unix and Linux webservers are case sensitive, in
> more than 20 years of website testing I don't ever recall seeing a 404 due
> to incorrect capitalisation of URLs. I did see one instance where different
> capitalisation resulted in entirely different page content.
>
> Windows webservers are not case sensitive.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Rowan @ Jetboy
> Sent: 30 November 2022 14:47
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Should URLs be in camel case like hash tags?
>
> Most web servers are case sensitive, so:
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mywebsite.com/pageInCamelCase/__;!!C5qS4YX3!BjJHKjYY7Fpa54a3QWIdPI6Oc7iwcyjL520keSb1t34HvXXr7r5OH_iUkG0f_LKOM2-kjEh-dkkJOtdW3Zi3zDThLThk4w$
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mywebsite.com/pageincamelcase/__;!!C5qS4YX3!BjJHKjYY7Fpa54a3QWIdPI6Oc7iwcyjL520keSb1t34HvXXr7r5OH_iUkG0f_LKOM2-kjEh-dkkJOtdW3Zi3zDT1v78IAw$
>
> would effectively be two distinct URLs. The first would return the page
> the user wanted. The second would 404. So any advantage in legibility would
> be offset by the requirement to get the capitalization right, for both the
> user and your developers. You could setup redirect rules, or allow
> duplicate pages to be served, but I'd advise not creating the problem in
> the first place and sticking with all lowercase, separated by hyphens (as
> Daniel advises).
>
> On 30/11/2022 11:27, Barry via WebAIM-Forum wrote:
> > I know the best practice with hash tags, but cannot find anything
> > useful on whether or not to camel case URLs for a11y.
> >
> >
> >
> > Incidentally, is there a WCAG to support camel case hash tags?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks in anticipation.
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> >
> >
> > Barry
> >
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