An Introduction to Embedded Assistance  

Everyone hates help, right? Why? Help is inherently reactive, anticipating users' failure rather than providing information when users need it--before they fail. Print documentation, further from the user’s task at hand, is even more guilty of these sins. This paper presents an overview of embedded assistance, describing the current help paradigm and why it's failing and the basics of embedded assistance, as well as the technologies and infrastructure and the skills and knowledge you need to develop effective embedded assistance.

Ames, Andrea L. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Documentation>Help>Embedded