I spend a lot of time in online spaces, so I often learn to identify people based on their usernames, display names, or similar account names. As someone with low vision and a print disability that makes it challenging to read standard print, accessible usernames make this a lot easier. An accessible username isn’t just something that can be detected by a screen reader; accessible usernames extend into being something that can be read with a print disability, shown in large print sizes, or that can be read out loud by a screen reader or displayed on a braille display with ease.
Here are my tips on how to choose accessible usernames and account names for social media and email, based on my experiences as a user with low vision.
Accessible usernames and cognitive accessibility
Users with cognition disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and/or learning disabilities often benefit from having consistent displays of information and may rely on things like users having the same username and/or profile pic across platforms to aid in recognizing people. People with cognitive disabilities make up the largest percentage of computer users with disabilities and the largest disability category overall according to the World Health Organization.
While this post primarily focuses on accessible usernames for users with visual impairments, or accessible usernames for screen reader users, many of these tips also specifically benefit users with cognitive accessibility needs.
Related links
- How I Optimize My Website For Cognitive Accessibility
- Six CSS Accessibility Tweaks I Made For My Website
- How To Make Tumblr Themes Accessible For Low Vision
- How To Improve Your Blog Theme For Visually Impaired Users
Incorporate casings for accessible usernames
Having a username in all lowercase/all uppercase letters, or using inconsistent capitalization can make it more challenging to read a username both visually and in terms of how it is read out loud with text-to-speech or with a screen reader. Since most usernames and screen names cannot be separated with a space, casings are ideal for making it easier to recognize usernames.
Pascal case capitalizes the first letter of the first word in a set and every word after it. This is helpful for usernames because it is easier to identify where words begin or end— one example of how this would look is “PascalCase”, with the P capitalized.
This advice for writing with pascal case is sometimes misidentified or confused with writing in camel case. Camel case traditionally makes the first word lowercase, and then capitalizes every subsequent word. This can also aid with readability, but most people seem to prefer the look of “PascalCase” over “camelCase” when it comes to writing usernames.
Other examples of potential cases for username can include kebab case (“kebab-case”) that separates words with dashes, or snake case (“snake_case”) that separates words with underscores. All of these are easier to read than having everything written in lowercase letters (“lowercaseletters”) or all uppercase letters (“UPPERCASELETTERS”), since there is more visual separation between words.
Related links
Avoid decorative fonts in display names, which may not render correctly
Most display names on social media are displayed in the same consistent font style, which is designed for readability. Using decorative fonts or alternative fonts is a common customization option, but it creates multiple accessibility issues for people with visual impairments and other print disabilities:
- Letters for decorative fonts can be harder to recognize, especially if they have a lot of decorative flourishes or similar looking letters
- Some decorative fonts may not render at all and appear as blank boxes or distorted characters
- Screen readers may not recognize these characters and will read them in a distorted way
- Smaller letters may not render in large print sizes
For this reason, I recommend avoiding decorative fonts and instead using the default display fonts.
Related links
- How To Make Accessible ASCII Art and Emoji Memes
- Zine Accessibility and Low Vision
- How To Make Your Instagram Feed Accessible For Visual Impairment
Limit use of excessive emoji in display names
Hi, I’m Veronica with (eye) (eye) (eye) (eye)! That’s how writing my name with four eye emoji after it would be read by a screen reader, potentially with the word emoji after each eye.
Excessive emoji can make it more challenging to read display names, especially if the emoji are inserted into a word or at the beginning of a username. I recommend limiting emoji to 1-3 in a display name, and adding them to the end of a username when possible so they are easier to skip. I personally have a blindness cane emoji in my display name, which helps to identify me as a visually impaired user on social media.
Another drawback to emoji is they may not display correctly in hyperlinks, and may appear as blank squares, Unicode symbols, or otherwise not as intended when included as part of a link.
Related links
Minimize repeated letters, which may be difficult to recognize
Writing the same letter, number, or other symbols/punctuation marks multiple times in a row can make it more challenge to remember a username, because it can be hard to count how many letters are actually repeated or it may cause the username to be read in an awkward way or to have distorted pronunciation. To be clear, this does not apply to people who have multiple letters in a row for their name, and is more targeted at people that add extra letters, numbers, or symbols to a username for other reasons.
I acknowledge that my website name Veroniiiica has a lot of repeated letters, specifically four I’s— what can I say, I love a great pun! Since my website name is Veronica With Four Eyes (I’s), it makes the number of I’s a bit easier to remember.
My username on most social media is Veron4ica, which uses the number 4 in front of a single I instead of writing the letter I four times. This is easier to type and sounds better when read out loud with speech synthesis tools such as text-to-speech or a screen reader, compared to Veron-I-I-I-I-ca. This is a better example of accessible usernames because it can be read quickly and is easier to remember.
Why is my name Veronica with four eyes?
Four eyes is an informal term for someone that wears glasses, which is unfortunately often used in the context of teasing. When I was coming up with potential names for my low vision and assistive technology website, I decided to spell Veronica with four I’s (eyes), and came up with Veroniiiica/Veron4ica.
Related links
- Follow me on BlueSky: @veron4ica.com
- Follow me on Pinterest: @Veron4ica
- Veronica’s Four Eyes: All About My Glasses For Low Vision
- Two of Everything: Living With Double Vision
Try not to use misspellings of inappropriate words
Inverting letters that typically would spell out an inappropriate word or explicit website/explicit language or coming up with a username that is a misspelling of one of these words can create a lot of confusion if someone’s autocorrect corrects the spelling of a word, if text-to-speech is used, or if a screen reader reads the text out loud and it sounds phonetically similar.
While I can’t tell people what their usernames should or should not be (or control what other people name their accounts), I can share that I once misread and misheard a username when it was read out loud, went to search for it, and ended up on a profile that shared explicit content. And to make things even more awkward, one of my professors was standing behind me at the time!
Some options for sharing usernames with accessibility in mind can include:
- Providing users with a QR code or other scannable image that links to a profile, instead of just writing out the username in a presentation or other handout
- Spelling usernames out loud when providing them in presentations
- Sharing hyperlinks or clickable images/icons on websites or handouts
Another consideration is to check how a username or display name appears if characters are cut off or run off the page due to display scaling issues with large print. To provide an example of how scaling issues can lead to confusion, I once received an email from someone that cut off the last part of a word, and made it look like this person was sending me an email with a curse word as the subject line, making me wonder if they were mad at me.
More tips for how to choose accessible usernames
- For BlueSky, most usernames follow the structure of username.bsky.social on the default server. To make it easier to type and let users know they are on the right profile, I connected my domain veron4ica.com so that it is easier to read, search for, and write.
- Curious as to how a username might sound when read out loud? One option is to turn on text-to-speech to hear it read out loud— learn more in How To Use Text-To-Speech With Low Vision
- Need to create accessible passwords too? While this may sound like a contradicting phrase, I share a list of tips in How To Create Secure And Easy To Remember Passwords
- Want to make your account even more accessible? Read How To Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the Visually Impaired
Published July 19, 2024. Updated November 2024