If you want to save time and don't need the full speed of USB, there are chips out there which can give you what you want. You communicate to the chip via Serial or SPI or UART and then you get the information in your computer via USB. The driver makes a "virtual" serial COM port on your computer. I used an old one by Silicon Labs called the CP2101. They have newer versions now: https://www.silabs.com/products/interface/usbtouart/Pages/default.aspx