1. A method of collaborative editing of a walkthrough, wherein steps in the walkthrough demonstrate interaction with a user interface, the method including: for each of a plurality of contributing authors, creating an editable version of a publisher's base walkthrough of a live application and storing the contributing author's walkthrough version; wherein the publisher's base and the contributing authors' walkthrough versions implement a series of activity steps that are configurable to be presented on an instruction layer that visually overlays the live application, flow of control among the activity steps is implemented by program code that is processed to coordinate presentation of the activity steps on the instruction layer that overlays a display generated by the live application, whereby performance by a user in accordance with instructions presented in the activity steps on the instruction layer causes interaction with the live application and advancing through the series of activity steps; receiving and storing edited contributing authors' walkthrough versions; transmitting, towards the publisher, data for display that elicits selection among the plurality of contributing authors' walkthrough versions; receiving the publisher's selection of at least one contributing author's walkthrough version to use in updating the publisher's base walkthrough; transmitting modifiable data for display that includes step facsimiles and an editable rendition of the activity steps of the selected contributing author's walkthrough version; and receiving publisher's acceptance of an edited activity step in the selected contributing author's version of the walkthrough and applying at least the publisher accepted activity step to the live application to update the step facsimiles.
1. A method of collaborative editing of a walkthrough, wherein steps in the walkthrough demonstrate interaction with a user interface, the method including: for each of a plurality of contributing authors, creating an editable version of a publisher's base walkthrough of a live application and storing the contributing author's walkthrough version; wherein the publisher's base and the contributing authors' walkthrough versions implement a series of activity steps that are configurable to be presented on an instruction layer that visually overlays the live application, flow of control among the activity steps is implemented by program code that is processed to coordinate presentation of the activity steps on the instruction layer that overlays a display generated by the live application, whereby performance by a user in accordance with instructions presented in the activity steps on the instruction layer causes interaction with the live application and advancing through the series of activity steps; receiving and storing edited contributing authors' walkthrough versions; transmitting, towards the publisher, data for display that elicits selection among the plurality of contributing authors' walkthrough versions; receiving the publisher's selection of at least one contributing author's walkthrough version to use in updating the publisher's base walkthrough; transmitting modifiable data for display that includes step facsimiles and an editable rendition of the activity steps of the selected contributing author's walkthrough version; and receiving publisher's acceptance of an edited activity step in the selected contributing author's version of the walkthrough and applying at least the publisher accepted activity step to the live application to update the step facsimiles. 3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the live application is a cloud-based software as a service offering and the interactions with the live application exercise controls on web pages generated by the live application.