Many of us know the courses within our curriculum that slow student progress toward graduation. Existing research has found that research design courses often serve as barriers, as one of these students arrive on the first day with high anxiety and low motivation. This article reviews how revisions driven by the Quality Matters framework resulted in higher student attainment in an online research design course. Improving course organization and objective-assignment alignment, increasing low-stakes assignments to build confidence and practice skills, and developing additional instructor feedback opportunities, significantly reduced DFWI rates and improved student satisfaction in the course.