How do you optimize instruction in an adaptive hypermedia learning environment? We believe instruction is optimized when adaptivity is grounded in good instructional design. To respect diverse talents and ways of learning, our cyclic approach to instructional design is the basis upon which inference techniques can be applied to continuously adapt instruction according to learning behavior and performance. We define an individual?s learning behavior in terms of how they interact with the environment (i.e links activated, pages visited, time spent, and frequency of visits). This paper describes the OctoPlus.. cycle and presents results of an experiment comparing two groups interacting with OctoPlus-formatted tutorials: a control and an adaptive group, to whom adaptive navigation, presentation and content features were added over time. Results indicated reduction in time spent for the adaptive group with comparable performance in the fully adaptive tutorial.