Building a Course: Styling

Illustrated variety of clothes on mannequins.

The Final Step

NYU SPS strives to be an inclusive environment for the many students we serve. One way to create an inclusive environment is to ensure the materials and course sites we share are accessible.

Learn More about NYU's Digital Accessibility Resources

Fun fact.

New York University has joined a consortium of universities around the world to launch the International Universities Climate Alliance. Inaugural members comprise 40 of the world’s leading climate research universities, led by UNSW Sydney and including Caltech, Cornell, and Penn State in the US, as well as institutions in Canada, China, France, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. NYU will work in concert with this group to identify the most effective ways to communicate research-based facts related to climate change to the public.

Taken from: click here.

An Environment for all

The final step is styling the page.

Sub heading styles one through four list.

Heading Styles

To ensure that all students can access your course, use a lesson title that is assigned a “Heading 1” style. “Heading 2” is recommended for section headings, “Heading 3” for subsection headings and “Heading 4” for all subsequent headings within those subsections.

Students placing pictures on webpage.

Inserting Images

Give all images “alt tags”. These are textual descriptions of images. This will also ensure that all students are able to access your course materials.

Desktop monitor, laptop and cellphone with arrows pointed at them.

Applying CSS

CAES has created a CSS stylesheet that can be inserted into your lesson. If the previous steps are followed and text is pasted within text boxes without formatting [Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+v], then this stylesheet may improve the readability of your Lessons.

Red circle alert reading keep in mind.

Keep in Mind: Striving for an inclusive learning environment is all of our responsibilities, using heading styles, image alt text and a CSS stylesheet helps many of our students.


To learn more about building a course, please attend a NEXUS webinar that can be found on the Training and Support page.


take a deeper dive

This site was developed by NYU SPS Learning and Teaching Nexus following the NYU Remote-Instruction mandate as a result of COVID-19.This site is evergreen, and will continue to grow and develop. All requests about content should go to nexus@nyu.edu.