Course thumbnails add visual data to your courses increasing user engagement and click-through rate for your courses. A good course thumbnail should summarize or represent the course contents.
For more information about configuring Courses, click here.
By Default
If you do not upload Thumbnails to your Courses there will be a default graphic assigned depending on Course type. Each of the default Course Thumbnails appear as follows:
It is also possible to upload your own default Course Thumbnails. Follow these steps to upload your own default Course Thumbnails:
- Access the Admin Experience as a System Administrator.
- Open the Account menu from the right hand side and click Portal Settings.
- Select the Defaults tab.
- Scroll down to find the Default Course Images toggle.
- Click the toggle to turn it ON.
- A series of fields will appear, allowing you to upload a Thumbnail per Course Type.
Recommended Image Size
229px x 173px
Appearance on the LMS
Card View
Detail View
Course Thumbnail Image Details
When selecting a image for a course thumbnail, ensure to choose an image that is within the Safe Zone (blue highlight) to avoid unwanted clipping of images keeping in mind image thumbnails have additional buttons and details depending on your course status. Make sure that objects or actions can be seen clearly in a 229px x 173px image size.
Important Note: In order to make Global Resources more visually engaging as well differentiate one from the other, SkillSync has added admin thumbnail configurations for Global Resources as well.
The images below are good course thumbnails for the following use case:
You can clearly see the actions in the photos
80% of collective or group images are captured clearly (e.g. groups of people, mobile apps)
The aspect ratio of the images are proportioned
The colour contrast between background and text is legible
You can instantly relate images to topics
Using Caution
Images with a lot of text
Limit the words in your image, make sure it is legible in terms of colour, font, and size. Exceptions for abstract images is if the purpose is to showcase a programming language, word documents, and handwriting. For best practice, use the Course Title and Description for text.
Busy or abstract background
With the exceptions, if the topic is regarding about that specific pattern or object (e.g. Aztec, fleur delis, etc...) Some images may be misinterpreted and to reiterate: make sure objects can be seen clearly and actions can be made out easily.
Images that are not within the safe zones
Your course thumbnail will have additional buttons or symbols depending on the status of the course or any other relevant information. Ensure that the important aspects of your image is within the safe zones, as referenced previously within this document.
Images that are distinctly one colour
A good course thumbnail should reflect course topics or content, adding to the overall aesthetics of your courses pages.
Crop your images appropriately
Unless it is intentional to capture a specific object or action, crop appropriately so as to not lose any important visual data.
Ensure standard image aspect ratio of 4:3
An aspect ratio of 4:3 means that for every four units of width, the picture will be three units high. If images with transparency aren't in a 4:3 aspect ratio, your course thumbnail will stretch.
Protect your content from copyright infringement
Use images that you own, have purchased, credit authors properly, ask permission for image usage or use creative commons license images with caution.
Avoid using animated gifs that loop once and have a vague last frame
If the animated gif loops forever make sure frames are continuous. As for WCAG compatibility animated gifs should stop blinking within 5 seconds. Reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G152.html
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