the compass points of a displayed joystick and may further comprise a non conductive button located in the center of the guide which orients the user as to the location of the center of the joystick and which also acts as a parking place for the user 39 s fingertip which will not activate any underlying displayed control in those embodiments in which non conductive element or elements are used it is generally preferred that the size of such element or elements is such that it they not occlude a large portion of the screen so that the tactile guides do not interfere with the operation of software applications other than the target application and do not need to be repeatedly removed when switching between the target application and other applications tactile guides may be made of any material exemplary materials include rubber and polymeric materials e g plastics and resins polymeric materials are preferred for their ease of manufacture and tunable tactile properties for example from hard to soft exemplary polymeric materials include polyoxymethylene melamine urea formaldehyde phenol formaldehyde polyurethane polyethylene polyethylene terepthalate polyvinyl chloride polyvinyl acetate polypropylene polyacrylonitrile epoxy resin and unsaturated polyester additional exemplary materials include aflas buna n butyl ech epichlorohydrin epdm ethylene propylene diene monomer eva ethylene vinyl acetate gum ionomer latex neoprene polyethylene foam polyethylene rubber polyimide polyurethane santoprene sbr styrene butadiene rubber silicone vinyl viton u00ae fluoroelastomer and.