Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how to design a web-based course in the context of China for self-directed learning from four perspectives--i.e. pedagogical, psychological, social and technological--and also to summarize the design principles for the web-based course. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews literature related to: self-directed learning, with a view to bringing out its capabilities and capacities for use in a web-based environment; theories and pedagogies of learning with a view to imbuing them for the design of web-based courses; and challenges of the design of web-based courses with a view to gauging its acceptability. Findings: The development of a successful web-based course needs to focus on multiple perspectives--pedagogical, psychological, social and technological--in order to contextualize it for learner-centeredness. The results show that the course designed based on these dimensions was flexible, useful and welcomed. Originality/value: This paper describes a conceptual framework for designing a web-based course from four perspectives and also presents a series of design principles for a web-based course. (Contains 4 figures.)