the Learning Hub accessibility guidelines

the Learning Hub is built to a WCAG 2.1 AA target. As an author, the platform handles most of the heavy lifting (focus management, ARIA roles, keyboard nav) — but the content you put in is your responsibility.

The five things you must get right

1. Alt text on every image. Decorative? Use alt="". Meaningful? Describe what the image is communicating, not what’s literally pictured.
2. Real headings. Use H2–H4 in the rich-text editor, not bold-as-heading.
3. Transcripts on every video. Auto-captioned is a starting point, not a finishing point — review them.
4. Sufficient colour contrast. The Liverpool theme meets contrast targets out of the box — don’t override colours inline.
5. Descriptive link text. “Endodontic guidelines (BES, 2024)”, not “click here”.

Things to avoid

• Embedded PDFs with no accessible HTML alternative.
• Video-only explanations of a complex diagram (provide a text equivalent).
• Tables for layout (use them only for tabular data).
• Time limits without an extension option.

Tools

• Built-in accessibility checker in TinyMCE (rich-text editor).
• WAVE browser extension for a quick page-level audit.
• Keyboard-only navigation test — tab through your unit; can you get everywhere?

Why this matters beyond compliance

A meaningful share of dental professionals have correctable visual impairments. Accessibility isn’t just a regulatory checkbox — it directly affects whether your CPD content is usable.