Making one directional virtual joystick OR smoothly transitioning between buttons

Hello Everyone. I am a school student and I am quite new to Unity's New Input system. I am trying to create a virtual one-directional joystick using the input system to use it as movement input for players to move only on the horizontal axis for an android game. But there is no inbuilt feature of doing so. The "On-Screen Stick" script provides solutions for 2d joysticks only (Or at least, I have not found other options). I also tried using buttons as an alternative by creating two buttons(one to move towards negative and the other to move towards the positive axis) but the issue with buttons is that one needs to raise the thumb( or finger) each time he wants to change the direction, and since my game is based on changing the direction of movement only, it is quite inconvenient to do so every time. It would be very grateful if someone explains either how to create a one-directional joystick OR to transition between both the movement buttons without raising the thumb.