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Never used those buttons, but my idiot cat does have his ways to tell me what he wants, and some of them are a bit abstract. For example, I tried to teach him to "knock" on the window when he wants to be let out / in so he won't wail at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night when he wants me to open the window for him. It worked after a few weeks, but what he learned is "knocking on glass = human lets me out" so he will sometimes go knock on the glass door of the cabinet instead and then make a beeline for the window once I open it for him. When I play dumb and open the cabinet instead, he'll just knock harder or THEN move to the window. He isn't interested in the actual cabinet or its contents at all.
Tapping a button to let the human know what you want can't be that much more different / abstract for a pet than tapping on glass. You just have to be consistent in showing them the right behaviour and reward it with the correct action whenever they do it right, so they eventually make the connection.