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You may or may not be wondering, "what is tactile and non-tactile?" - good question, let's start there. Tactile, tactile feel, or tactile feedback is a touch sensation developed or added to enhance the user experience. Tactile sensations in touch sensors are often referred to as haptic feedback; it is that tiny vibration you feel when touching the sensor, that is programmed in. For this blog post, we will be focusing specifically on membrane switches and why someone may (or may not) choose to include tactile domes to their interface.

When backlighting is well designed and manufactured, it can create an outstanding user experience! However, it is important to note, common sense goes a long way when designing a membrane switch and the colors used for indicator lights - you want it to be intuitive! Can any Joe Schmo walk off the street and at first glance understand what the lights are indicating?

I posed this question to our engineering team and they couldn't give me an answer, which makes sense...every membrane switch application will have a different size, layout, and use requirements; a definitive number is just not possible. However, there is such a thing as too many buttons...to determine how many switches/buttons can fit in a given area answer these questions:

What would it cost you to redeisgn the sensor on your application, and qualify a new supplier, if the stock touch sensor is no longer produced? 

Purchasing a stock/off-the-shelf sensor can be a cost effective solution, but as you may have seen in our previous blog, they can have their shortcomings, especially when it comes to user experience and design compromises - but what about supply?

How your customers touch your products is a critical factor in your success. Customer satisfaction is driven by their user interface experience: touch matters!

Whether you are manufacturing cars, clothes, electronics, or anything in between, scrap is always a constant battle - mistakes and oversights happen, and rework is a necessary evil. In a perfect world, there would be no scrap; every product would be created perfectly the first time, every time. Unfortunately that is not the case, BUT, fear not, there are things you can do to reduce scrap!

A stock touch sensor can be a great solution for your product, not to mention cost effective, but it can require some compromises.

A compromised design means that engineering made accommodations in the design of the unit to be able to make the stock sensor work.

Your customers want to have a great experience using your product.

A key aspect to that great experience is the performance of the capacitive touch sensor responding only when touched. From a touch sensor standpoint, this means that the sensitivity to a touch needs to be just right, just like Goldilocks would have it. If the sensitivity is too high or too low, your customer will likely get frustrated. If your customer is frustrated with their touch/user-experience, they will be frustrated with your product overall - regardless of how well the rest of your device works.

Anti-glare • Anti-fingerprints • Anti-scratch • Anti-smudge

Is it possible to have them all? The simple answer, no, HOWEVER, there are things suppliers can do to get you pretty darn close.

First, determine what is more important on your membrane switch:

• Having a crystal clear display?
• Anti-glare surface?
• Survival in sunlight (if used outdoors)?

In October 2017, Xymox achieved 1,000 days without a lost time injury.  This type of achievement doesn’t just happen by luck.  It takes a safety first conscious workforce, an active safety team, and a commitment from management to provide a safe work environment. Work place injuries are more than just a cost burden to a company, they affect the moral of the entire company, they impact friends and family, and can permanently change the injured workers life.  Xymox believes that not only can we prevent injuries from occurring in the workplace, but we can provide an environment where people can actually get healthier with such benefits as a wellness program, onsite chiropractic care, ergonomic work stations, and a healthy work/life balance.