Touchscreens are a terrible interface for most things, they excel at almost nothing, but we slapped them into everything because they're so generic that they're overall cheaper than any other and better interface.

I have not yet seen a single instance of a physical control like a button/lever/slider/knob/etc where people said "damn, I wish this was a featureless glass surface with buggy software on it".

On extremely generic devices having a touchscreen makes some sense, like on a smartphone, although I'd argue even there it has caveats.

But the main reason touch interfaces are everywhere now is an economic one. It's just cheaper and easier to slap a touchscreen on something and figure out the software later while users serve as involuntary beta testers, instead of designing and committing to physical controls that need to be manufactured.

As a legally blind person touchscreens or touch buttons on every device are the bane of my existence.

The iPhone is very accessible, Android phones are reasonably accessible to the blind. But hardly anyone makes the touch screen on an appliance screen reader accessible.(apart from very expensive products made especially for the blind).

Why does the espresso machine at work need touch sensitive buttons? I've learned that I need the second button from the top. But since I can't touch the top of the machine to feel where the buttons are without instantly activating any other button on the way I find it very difficult to make a cup of coffee .

Touch screens are worse. and when some company does make them accessible for legal reasons (ATMs for example), they do such a shitty job you may as well ask for sighted assistance anyway.

#accessibility #blind