I once managed the world’s first virtual reality (VR) theme park attraction. Guests strapped on 10-pound helmets and climbed onto stationary motorbikes to fly on a magic carpet. It was ahead of its time (in the early 2000s). It was also a massive headache — pun intended. We had to clean every headset between guests. Straps required constant adjusting to fit every possible head size. And if the counterweight holding the apparatus up decided to give out, well, you can imagine what happened next.

That experience taught me a valuable lesson: hardware shapes the experience.

Sure, the 3D world was built with software. But you couldn’t fly to Agrabah without the right device. Every tactile point of friction — an ill-fitting liner, a broken display, a failing counterweight — disrupted the magic. The entire attraction had to be designed around the point of access.

The same is true for learning at work.

Our Software Bias

When people talk about “learning tech,” they’re inevitably talking about software. Platforms. Apps. Artificial intelligence (AI). We focus on features, integrations and interfaces.

Hardware is just … assumed.

In the office, this assumption holds. Work happens on screens all day, every day. People move from meeting to meeting with laptops in hand. They jump on Teams calls and ask Claude to rewrite their emails. Many carry two phones, one personal and one company-issued. Screens are everywhere, so information access is constant and reliable.

But this isn’t reality for most employees. More than 70% of the global workforce is deskless, working in retail stores, healthcare facilities, restaurants, hotels and construction sites. They may use screens now and then, like a point-of-sale system or a desktop workstation. But access is inconsistent, often limited by role, position or task.

When learning and development (L&D) designs enablement to suit corporate reality, we lock a significant portion of the workforce out of the learning ecosystem.

Access Inequity

You think it’s hard to get a corporate employee sitting at a computer to complete a 30-minute compliance module? Try pulling a manufacturing worker off the line, walking them across a facility the size of two football fields and getting them into a computer lab they never use just to complete the same training.

Failing to consider the hardware side of digital learning strategy does more than create friction. It reinforces inequity and widens the gap between corporate and frontline workers. People do their jobs differently. We can’t put a screen in front of every worker all the time, but L&D can ensure hardware availability isn’t a barrier to doing the job well.

Wired for Work

Start by finding the screens. When and where do people use devices within the workflow? And I mean every screen! Handheld scanners, wrist-mounted devices, shared desktops, breakroom kiosks, deli scales, personal smartphones.

These access points are the foundation of your enablement strategy.

Maximize every device. Ditch the responsive courseware for task-focused tools. Every employee should be two clicks and ten seconds away from support. Leverage formats that match the moment and the screen: quick answers via digital assistant, short tutorial videos, rapid practice activities.

Lastly, recognize when digital just doesn’t fit. A well-maintained binder or a quick coaching conversation can outperform any app when devices aren’t available. Don’t force tech into the workflow because a vendor said you should. Focus on the most efficient and effective way to support the work.

A Hard(ware) Lesson

AI will continue to dominate the tech conversation. But every large language model (LLM) and agent comes with the same requirement: access. To free the Genie or walk a retail associate through the new return policy, you must design around the device. Hardware shapes the experience. Start there.