Design process in any field of experience might not have clear borders to define pursued stages or procedures. Early design models were basically viewed as linear (Shaw & Reeve, 1978; William & Jinks, 1985), then iteration processes and interaction had been seen on models (Sellwood, 1991). Recent views have been emerging with the tendency towards adaptive, nonlinear, more interactive, and relative design processes. As approaches change, the novice designers' adaptations can differ from earlier colleagues.

In the field of instructional design, design models can form in accordance with the characteristics of the design problem. In other words, problems can be either well-structured or ill-structured and they need specific approaches for design process. Jonassen (1997) suggested a model having its foundation from information processing theories for well-structured problems. On the other hand, for ill-structured problems, the model based upon constructivist and situated cognition approaches. Instructional design can be defined as “a construct that refers to the principles and procedures by which instructional materials, lessons, and whole systems can be developed in a consistent and reliable fashion” (Molenda, Reigeluth, &Nelson, 2003, p. 574). Although there have been many models in the literature (eg. Dick & Carey, 1996; Willis & Wright, 2000), majority of them inherit the aspect of ADDIE framework, which includes Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation (ADDIE).

There have been many studies defining how instructional designers practice their knowledge in the field (Rowland, 1992; Ertmer, York, & Gedik, 2009). These studies clearly indicate that instructional design process is a little bit different from the modeled ones (Rowland, 1992) because the problem(s) is not clearly defined at the first sight and thus problem solving is very sophisticated in ID (Ertmer & Cennamo, 1995). Therefore, an expert’s approach to an ID problem differs from the way that novices approach the problem (Perez & Emery, 1995; Harde, Ge, & Thomas, 2005).

Studies engaging in the novice designers generally focused on the whole instructional design processes, but there are a few studies dealing with exactly the heuristics (eg. Yilmaz, Seifert, & Gonzales, 2011). Exploring how the novice designers shape and use design heuristics is one of the considerations of this study. Another aim of the study is to observe the ways novice designers skill developments. In this way, it is expected that barriers and enablers of a design process for novices can be revealed.

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