Standardization.  Make everything the same and it's easier to manage. It's a conundrum that has faced front-line instructors since the inception of standardized curriculum and tests.  Online development, especially at an institutional level, is undergoing the same issues.  Balancing administrative and instructional needs can be an awkward balance. 

At the adult level, assumptions are made that standardization and even research around online design applies to all levels of learners.  Yet, a basic education student doesn't manage information in the same way a student in a post-secondary college program does.  It's not about being an adult, common sense, or a weird assumption that smart phones and computer literacy are the same thing.   It's about the level that a person is at with their prior knowledge, skills and abilities.  Self-efficacy and confidence plays a part, as well as prior learning experiences, learning deficits and digital and critical literacy.    

When it comes to ideas like Universal Design, you wouldn't say I'm not making that doorway bigger to ensure wheelchair access because it doesn't fit with the design elements of our hallway. Or,  I am not painting that door so that my residents with dementia won't get confused.  In my opinion, someone who has never met with a person who is in a wheelchair should probably not be designing their accessible kitchen. 

Universal design for learning takes the idea of design into the virtual world in wonderful ways.   It is even incorporated into checklists when it comes to online design. Yet, when it becomes a matter of aesthetics and checklists, unfortunately the level and reality of a learner isn't always taken into consideration. 

Design elements and decisions such as monochromatic, small print, and nothing flashy in order to make courses institutionally the same are the norm.  But it should be recognized that these decisions are often being made by individuals with a much different worldview and understanding than our adult basic education students. As a result, the creative is abolished. And it is the creative that is most needed to bring in those learners who exist on the margins, in order to better facilitate their online experience.  Ensuring the decisions being made relates to the learner at their particular level becomes a matter not of personal preference or inappropriate research applications, but of what really works for our learners.