The designing of instruction, when considered as a process, is the determination of instructional requirements of the learner and development of functional learning systems in order to meet these requirements. In fact, as a consequence of studies on the development of effective learning systems some instructional design theories have emerged. Among these theories the motivational design theory points out that instructional processes are required to be configured with the strategies which increases the attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction of the students for an instructional design which ensures the continuity of learning motivation. The studies indicate that the systems which are developed on the basis of mentioned strategies raise the attention of the student during instruction, develop a relevance to the students’ requirements, create a positive expectation for success and help having a satisfaction by reinforcing success. In this article, the empirical studies related with this subject and the suggestions for presenting more effective motivational instructional designs in distance learning are summarized.