Patent ID: 7627557

Claim:
A computer configured to provide user assistance, the computer comprising: a processing unit; storage media operable coupled to the processing unit; a first software entity stored on the storage media, the first software entity having first assistance content; a second software entity stored on the storage media, the second software entity having second assistance content; a single hierarchical corpus of assistance content stored on a computer-readable storage medium and comprising the first and second assistance content; an assistance engine operably coupled to the single hierarchical corpus of assistance content; a user input operably coupled to the processor and disposed to receive a user assistance request; wherein the assistance engine is configured to receive scope information defining a level in the single hierarchical corpus of assistance content that is a search space and to receive bias information to influence relevance scores of search results, and wherein the assistance engine is configured to generate an assistance content query based upon the user assistance request over the search space comprising the single hierarchical corpus of assistance content; and wherein the bias information is related to a state of the computer, and wherein the bias information is indicative of a software entity with which the user is interacting.