Designers of technology-based instruction wrestle with the possibility that their product will seem cold or mechanical to the user. Given the current understanding of learning as a social process, it is no longer reasonable to restrict the learner's participation in the process of instruction to trivial interactions. We believe that designs will improve if designers change their design goals. It is not the mechanical nature of the technological devices--or distance--that causes loss of the human quality of instruction. Rather, it is the priority given by designers to efficient rather than helpful designs. This article proposes that the theme of helpfulness as described by Inouye, Merrill, and Swan (2005) describes a needed change in thinking that will cause designers to focus on more conversational models of technology-based instruction.