Where is the User in the Design

Creation and delivery of help content was what was on my mind as I sat crocheting a tiny coin purse for my mother.  She has a very cute, 3-inch, pot-bellied leather purse that she uses to keep her loose change in but it's coming apart at the seams, hence I sat there, crocheting this:

To zoom in, click on the picture

And, have we not often come across something like this:

To zoom in, click on the picture 

[Note: Thanks for catching the misplaced apostrophe. Feeling too lazy to edit the pic.]

I am picturing a scenario with me and my mom:

 To zoom in, click on the picture

Creating and delivering help content is very similar to creating any other product.  So, I ask myself, Where, How, and When is my reader going to need this information.  If I can answer these three questions, the content I create will truly be User Assistance.

Where is the user in the guide

Yesterday, I got myself a new phone. Last time I had bought one, it was April 2004 - a time when cellphones here did not have built-in FM radios, internet support, multimedia messaging, and all such exciting features that are so much passé today. Consequently, it was a very celliterate me that held the phone gingerly and regarded its QWERTY keyboard with interest. And thence started my frustration. I could not figure out how to do any of those exciting features that all phones have nowadays (let's not blame the UI now.  All UIs seem non-intuitive to first-time users).
So, I reached for the user guide. A glance at the ToC, and I could not find answers to any of my three questions.

To magnify the picture, click on the picture

"So what", I told myself. "Just a 37 page booklet. I'll flip through it and will surely find something."

Five minutes later, I threw the booklet away, powered my laptop on, asked Google, and found answers to all my questions:

• How do I transfer a photo taken on the phone to my laptop?
• Where do I get the Missed Calls list?
• How do I disable the keypad beeps?

I see several things wrong with this user guide but the one thing that stands out prominently is - this guide is describing the features of the phone; it's not describing the tasks I, the user, do.