When we designed software or websites for desktop computers, it was easy to think about the user interface in isolation from the hardware the user would actually use. When smart phones broke out into the scene, we were (once again) reminded that the software user interfaces we design exist in physical devices that allow us to interact with the software.
The software is the mind or spirit, and the hardware is the body. When you think about them in isolation, you miss the emergent properties of the whole. As it is with humans, so it is with our digital devices.
As a user experience designer (or whatever the job titles happens to be), it’s all too easy to focus on the spiritual side of the device. This makes sense, because for practical purposes, most of us don’t influence the hardware side. But our software or websites do exist in glass, metal, and plastic bodies and I imagine we will want to be more mindful of this in the years ahead.