diff --git a/src/devices/keyboard-joypad/KeyboardJoypad.cpp b/src/devices/keyboard-joypad/KeyboardJoypad.cpp
index a0075d5..e717cca 100644
--- a/src/devices/keyboard-joypad/KeyboardJoypad.cpp
+++ b/src/devices/keyboard-joypad/KeyboardJoypad.cpp
@@ -359,8 +359,7 @@ class yarp::dev::KeyboardJoypad::Impl
             std::string button = button_with_alias;
             std::string alias = "";
 
-            //get only the substring before a possible _ and transform it to lower case
-            size_t pos = button_with_alias.find('_');
+            size_t pos = button_with_alias.find(':');
             bool have_alias = false;
             if (pos != std::string::npos)
             {