18. A method executed by at least one processor for controlling a computer system to display instructional material that changes based on user actions, comprising: receiving a help request that identifies an instructional application associated with a separate software application that a user is using, the instructional application including one or more workflows that display associated instructional material; invoking the identified instructional application; detecting one or more properties of an executing environment in which the instructional application executes, the one or more properties of the executing environment including at least one property of the executing environment that is not a component of the separate software application, and is not related to the user's interactions with the instructional application; displaying help information in response to the received help request, the displayed help information including one or more choices that the user can make to refine the type of help information that the user receives; detecting a user action within a workflow that identifies a particular path within the workflow; and dynamically updating the displayed help information based on the detected user action to display more relevant help information, the instructional material being dynamically updateable to display help information to the user related to the user's current context, one or more previous choices in the software application, and the detected one or more properties of the executing environment, said dynamically updating comprising at least one of highlighting a path of the workflow that a user has taken and fading one or more steps of the workflow that are not relevant to the user based on the detected user action.
18. A method executed by at least one processor for controlling a computer system to display instructional material that changes based on user actions, comprising: receiving a help request that identifies an instructional application associated with a separate software application that a user is using, the instructional application including one or more workflows that display associated instructional material; invoking the identified instructional application; detecting one or more properties of an executing environment in which the instructional application executes, the one or more properties of the executing environment including at least one property of the executing environment that is not a component of the separate software application, and is not related to the user's interactions with the instructional application; displaying help information in response to the received help request, the displayed help information including one or more choices that the user can make to refine the type of help information that the user receives; detecting a user action within a workflow that identifies a particular path within the workflow; and dynamically updating the displayed help information based on the detected user action to display more relevant help information, the instructional material being dynamically updateable to display help information to the user related to the user's current context, one or more previous choices in the software application, and the detected one or more properties of the executing environment, said dynamically updating comprising at least one of highlighting a path of the workflow that a user has taken and fading one or more steps of the workflow that are not relevant to the user based on the detected user action. 19. The method of claim 18 wherein invoking the identified instructional application comprises invoking a generic runtime executable and a specific workflow stored in a module readable by the runtime executable.