Invisible Infrastructure and Communicating Failure and Malfunctioning to the User

Quotes from Norbet Streitz and Paddy Nixon their editorial of the March 2005 special issue of the Communication of the ACM on the Disappearing Computer:

Since the infrastructure structure is meant to be invisible it will be necessary to develop an understanding of what failure means and how malfunctioning is communicated to the user.

and in a more general level:

The increasing ubiquity of computer and their diffusion into our environment requires reconsidering the complex interplay between technology and the human.