10. A computer system for authoring interactive, dynamic instructional information, the system comprising: a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions; an authoring environment configured to build an executable workflow software application designed by an author, the author designing the executable workflow software application using a user interface provided by the authoring environment through which the author creates one or more workflows to be presented by the executable workflow software application, the one or more workflows providing content-relevant instructional material to a user of a software application, the instructional material being dynamically updateable by the executable workflow software application to display help information to the user related to the user's current context and one or more previous choices in the software application; a trigger setup component configured to receive triggers selected by the author that cause displayed content to change based on user actions; a runtime component configured to use an executable module built by the authoring environment to load and display authored workflows; and an application data store configured to store authored, executable workflow software applications; the executable workflow software application being configured to: detect one or more user actions as the user interacts with the executable workflow software application; detect one or more conditions of a computing environment in which the executable workflow software application and the software application execute, the one or more conditions of the computing environment being unrelated to the user's interactions with the executable workflow software application; and provide an interface to the user during run time to display instructional information to the user and receive user actions that determine which instructional material to display.
10. A computer system for authoring interactive, dynamic instructional information, the system comprising: a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions; an authoring environment configured to build an executable workflow software application designed by an author, the author designing the executable workflow software application using a user interface provided by the authoring environment through which the author creates one or more workflows to be presented by the executable workflow software application, the one or more workflows providing content-relevant instructional material to a user of a software application, the instructional material being dynamically updateable by the executable workflow software application to display help information to the user related to the user's current context and one or more previous choices in the software application; a trigger setup component configured to receive triggers selected by the author that cause displayed content to change based on user actions; a runtime component configured to use an executable module built by the authoring environment to load and display authored workflows; and an application data store configured to store authored, executable workflow software applications; the executable workflow software application being configured to: detect one or more user actions as the user interacts with the executable workflow software application; detect one or more conditions of a computing environment in which the executable workflow software application and the software application execute, the one or more conditions of the computing environment being unrelated to the user's interactions with the executable workflow software application; and provide an interface to the user during run time to display instructional information to the user and receive user actions that determine which instructional material to display. 17. The system of claim 10 wherein the executable workflow software application is further configured to, upon detecting the user action, display instructional content based on a path associated with the detected action.