Presentation of help information via a computer system user interface in response to user interaction

Provided is a framework supporting presentation of help information via a computer system user interface in response to the proximity of an input device pointer to an interface area associated with a user interface component. The framework provides generic methods which remove from user interface components much of the task of managing the presentation of help information. The framework supports presentation of help information for a platform-independent component programming environment and supports presentations in a plurality of different styles (such as text, audio, animating graphics, etc) by means of selectable presentation methods.