I think that's a pretty common design pattern for industrial/reliable applications. Multi Function Displays have been common in "glass-cockpit" aircraft for a l

I think that's a pretty common design pattern for industrial/reliable applications. Multi Function Displays have been common in "glass-cockpit" aircraft for a long time. The F16 notably also feature master mode switches on the group of buttons below the HUD. It allows the operator to quickly switch between air to air, air to ground, dogfight modes, etc, bringing up relevant displays and controls at a moment's notice. I've heard that pilots consider F16 one of the best designed in terms of interface. Soft buttons are also pretty common for test and measurement equipment. I own many modern digital oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers, all of which feature physical buttons around the screen that are selected by software to do different things