What you need to know when choosing push buttons for physical devices

On July 16, 1969 a single press of a button launched Apollo 11 into the orbit. The button initialising the ignition process was, at the time, the pinnacle of UX design. It reflected its power in a precisely-crafted haptic feedback and a perfectly balanced actuation movement. Every launch since has been initialised with a button, featuring the same characteristics, resulting in what we know today as the ‘Apollo haptics’.

That story is completely made up and that button was most likely no different from the one on the coffee machine nearby. …