The rendering of documents is only one part of the story. Another goal would be not only to build a tool for creating a document in the sense of set in in a certain form, but also to collect the right content for it. Now it is clear, that it is not possible today to build didactical efficient documents which are optimal for human reading and understanding. But if we not try single steps toward this direction, we will never come closer to the goal
So what can be done today ? Documents are answers to questions. Sounds trivial, but is the jumping point. So maintaining content means maintaining questions. So this could be a simple first step: manage not only content, but also manage the questions relateted to it and manage also the relations. The other thing are terms. Terms are the most basic but important building block of any content. In consequence, building term networks (and visualising them) would be another brick in the wall.
At this time, I am reading something about Husserls Phenomenology, a philosophy which looks (together with other things) how our understanding can come to see the nature of things. May be there are aspects which could be tried in the context of document rendering. And again, computer science will become practical philosophy
Of course, I also try to get an overview ofer things like semantic web.
