You're a gem in the embedded world of almost pure coal and dirt mixture.
I also want to stab embedded developers with a pin header if they ever try to use a touch screen. About the only place a touch screen makes sense and is provably better is your phone. Any other application of a touch screen needs to be eradicated from this planet.
Thing is, it's expected of a lot of devices with a screen to have that screen be a touch screen too.
I've worked on the touch screen UI for a 3D printer, one that used to have a tiny OLED and a rotating push button. Company did some usability research on that and people couldn't figure out how to use that combination.
The touch screen UI was well researched and won an award even and I dare say one function regressed because of the touch screen, but that function (manual build plate leveling where you look at the nozzle instead of the screen) you should never need any more because the rest of the machine got better.
Modern car manufacturers: "Hey let's replace this perfectly fine working knob with a touch screen that sorta looks and feels like a knob but really isn't and that will need an outrageously expensive replacement just after the warranty ends"...
Off the top of my head, systems where a touchscreen is probably better than other input:
- Ticket machines
- Food machines
- Informational kiosks
- Border control machines
Basically whenever you have a public-facing system that's designed to be used for a short period of time, with relatively simple input.
Touchscreens are more accessible than mouse/keyboards, because many people genuinely don't use mouse and keyboards at all. Furthermore, it's a lot easier to keep a touchscreen clean than a mouse and keyboard!
I totally disagree - for simple actions there is no need for a touchscreen. Just put a button and a label. And LED to confirm the action, buzzer if sound is needed. That is all you need.
The only advantage of a touchscreen is surprisingly not the ability to touch, but the ability to reconfigure the input interface through software. When you don't need to reconfigure things, encoders, toggles, push buttons, rotary switches, etc. are far superior (with some downsides - cost, reliability).
> for simple actions there is no need for a touchscreen.
Ok, here's a simple action, that's often solved by touchscreens - Choose a destination from a ticket machine. Let's start with the button-first approach. Here's what the London Underground ticket machines used to look like:
No, your hands are gonna get tired after about 3 mins of using surface. All these futuristic videos showing what the future entails - everyone using a touch screen or a gesture - is ergonomically aggregious and completely out of touch(no pun) with reality.
Only with some sort of approximately-tactile feedback. Some VR systems fall completely short of this (most dataglove type devices) while other "cruder" ones (like console controllers) actually do a better job because interfaces like buttons and triggers are analogous to many real world sensations.
I also want to stab embedded developers with a pin header if they ever try to use a touch screen. About the only place a touch screen makes sense and is provably better is your phone. Any other application of a touch screen needs to be eradicated from this planet.