Course Quality Checklist

Questions answered by this guide

• ?What should I check for course quality before publishing?
• ?Is there a checklist for broken links and styling issues, separate from accessibility?
• ?What counts as a course quality problem?
• ?How is this different from the Before You Publish Checklist?

What you'll learn

• 12 checks covering links, consistency, cleanup, and navigation
• A companion to the Course Quality Guide, this is the fast, run-it-before-publishing version
• Distinct from the Accessibility checklists, course quality is about polish, not assistive technology

What's inside

Instructional designers doing a final course-quality pass before publishing

1. 01Links & navigation
2. 02Styling & consistency
3. 03Content cleanup
4. 04Final pass

Why it matters

A course can be fully accessible and still feel unfinished, a broken link, a mismatched font, or duplicate content are the kind of thing a learner notices immediately, and each one is easy to miss without a deliberate pass built specifically to catch them.

Best practices

• Run this after the course is finished and content is final, styling and links are the last things worth checking, since they're the most likely to change late.
• Treat each item as yes or no. If you're not sure, treat it as no and check again.
• Use A11yCheck's Course Quality scan alongside this checklist, it catches broken links and duplicate content faster and more completely than a manual click-through.

Common mistakes

• Only clicking links that were added recently, instead of every link in the course.
• Assuming a course quality issue is minor because it doesn't block functionality, a broken link or duplicate slide still damages trust in the course.
• Skipping this pass because the course already passed an accessibility review, the two are unrelated.

Practical checklist

• Every link in the course has been clicked and opens the correct destination.
• No link returns a 404 or other error.
• Fonts are consistent across every slide.
• Button styles and corner treatments match throughout the course.
• Colors used for the same purpose (e.g. a primary action button) are consistent slide to slide.
• No two slides or lessons share the same or near-identical title.
• No two slides or lessons share substantially the same body text.
• No leftover placeholder text, sample images, or draft content remains.
• No deprecated or legacy authoring features are left unaddressed.
• Revisiting an already-completed slide or interaction doesn't force a redo or re-lock content.
• Navigation (Back/Next, menu, restricted navigation settings) behaves correctly on a second pass through the course, not just the first.
• A second person has reviewed the course for anything that reads as unfinished.

Frequently asked questions

Summary

A focused, 12-check pass for the polish-and-consistency issues, broken links, inconsistent styling, duplicate content, that make a course feel unfinished even when it's fully accessible.