"I have found a review on Amazon that says it is Plug-and-Play and implies that it 'just works'. Although I have it plugged into a Windows 10 laptop which recognises it correctly but doesn't give me any clues other than it is successfully configured using a generic driver utilising input.inf which is a start but not very helpful."

Amazon reviews are the most gamed reviews on the planet, and are generally worthless when it comes to anything technical. Plug and Play could mean many things, depending on who is doing what with whatever. I agree with what stevieb has said, this is a lot easier with off the shelf microcontrollers, and you can bet that someone has already done exactly what you want, in a way that is fairly easy to adapt or build upon (like the methods I previously linked to). If you want to jump in and get your hands dirty with rolling your own, this is of course fine, but don't use Amazon reviews as a substitute for actual research, and expect to have to do a lot of that, research.