This design case describes an online Ed.D. in Instructional Systems Technology (IST) launched in 2012. We will focus on a key aspect of the design: program advising and students' relationship with their advisors. While the design was responsive in its earliest stages to organizational constraints, legislative requirements and the known configurations for higher education, it did not include detailed attention to student/advisor relationships. Consequently, the first set of students experienced difficulties and the faculty had to make adjustments. This paper will present critical decisions made during the design of this program and the reasons for those decisions, situations in which decisions did not work as planned, and description of the subsequent revision of the design.