Course thumbnails
The course featured image is used in more places than the course page, and a missing one shows.
Where it appears
| Place | Use |
|---|---|
| The course page | The featured image, if enabled, before or after the title |
| The course subheader | The background, when the subheader uses Featured image |
| My courses | The thumbnail in each student's course list |
| Your catalogue page | Whatever your theme module or hand-built page uses |
| Social shares | Whatever your SEO plugin picks up |
One image does all of that, which is why it is worth choosing properly.
Setting it
In the course editor sidebar, Featured image → Set featured image. Same as any post.
Choosing the image
It has to work as both a wide background and a small thumbnail:
- Landscape, roughly 16:9, at least 1200 px wide. The subheader crops it to the height you chose, and a portrait image crops badly.
- Keep the subject central. Edges are cropped at different ratios in different places.
- Leave the middle uncluttered. With the subheader on, the course title sits on top of the image.
- Avoid text in the image. It cannot be translated, it does not scale, and it collides with the title.
- Compress it. A background image is one of the heaviest things on the page.
Consistency across the catalogue
Course thumbnails are seen side by side in My courses and on your catalogue page. Mixed treatments — one photo, one screenshot, one illustration with a white border — make a catalogue look assembled rather than designed.
Pick one treatment and apply it to every course: same crop, same style, same overlay if you use one.
Missing images
A course with no featured image gets:
- A placeholder in My courses.
- A subheader with no background, unless a custom background image is set for all courses.
- Whatever your catalogue module falls back to.
Check it before launch: open Courses in the administration and scan the list for courses with no thumbnail.
Lesson images
Lessons have featured images too, but they are used far less — only on the lesson page, and in the lesson subheader when it uses the featured image.
Most lessons do not need one. The video is the visual. If lesson subheaders use featured images and lessons have none, set one custom background for all lessons instead of an image per lesson.
Alternative text
Set the alt text when you upload. It is read out to students using a screen reader and shown if the image fails to load.
Describe the image, not the course: "Chef plating a dish", not "Course 3".
Verify
- Open Courses and confirm every course has a thumbnail.
- Open a course and confirm the image reads well at full width with the title over it.
- Open My courses as a student and confirm the thumbnails look consistent.
- Check your catalogue page.
- Check one course on a phone.