Novice designers continue to be an increasingly larger part of the instructional design community and methods to support them in their efforts continue to be developed. These novice designers desire support and training, yet frequently grow frustrated with the complex models and theories often employed by professional instructional designers. Literature suggests that a principles-based approach to instructional design, such as Merrill's first principles of instruction, may be more suitable for novice designers as a design guide than would these more complex models, yet little research has been done investigating the use of these principles-based approaches from a qualitative perspective. High school teachers with little to no prior instructional design experience were recruited and briefly trained in the first principles of instruction, whereupon they used the first principles as a guide to creating online discussion boards for their otherwise traditional classes. Basic qualitative inquiry was used as a framework for interviewing participants and gathering data about their experiences throughout the design and implementation process. Their experiences indicated that the first principles of instruction were approachable and useful as a design guide, particularly when compared with their previous attempts at creating discussion boards. However, participants struggled to describe their experiences in design terms, and most participants also indicated that additional support would be useful if they were to continue in their design efforts. Nearly all participants indicated that they would be willing to continue to use the first principles of instruction, though, as the participants found the principles to be sensible, approachable, and easy to apply to their learning environment needs. Recommended further research would examine novice designers applying a principles-based approach to more than one design task or by having novice designers use multiple design theories or approaches. This further research would expand the parameters of the comparative analysis, adding to the instructional design knowledge base and providing additional understanding of how to best support novice designers in their design efforts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]