Thai script loop flowchart

Prompt

``` # The Contemporary Effects of Loops: Studying the implications of this unique feature of the Thai script Research by Héctor Mangas Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of loops in the Thai script. These looked at reading performance (distance reading acuity, continuous reading performance and comprehension), and the explicit perception of text (connotations produced by the loops). The debate over looped and loopless fonts in Thai typography has been a long-standing discussion among designers and font users. At the time of writing, there is no fundamental research to help make a clear decision about how loops affect both legibility and readers' attitudes. Do loops make text easier or harder to read? Does the reader's age influence their readability? Can we map how people feel about them? We decided to conduct a thorough three-fold study to answer these questions. The results provide an in-depth and novel insight into how this unique feature of the Thai script is perceived by its readers. **Three experiments were conducted in Bangkok during early 2024, with the help of 180 native Thai readers.** ## Measuring distance reading acuity (N=41) For this first experiment, we looked at how discernible letters are in the distance depending on the presence of loops. Materials We used three typefaces for this experiments. Two versions of Zed Text Thai were developed by Ekaluck Peanpanawate – one with loops and one without. Both fonts have low-contrast between the thickness of strokes, identical stroke weight, inter-letter spacing, and letter width, to ensure that the main difference between the fonts is absence or presence of the loops. The third test typeface was 'Thonburi', a very popular font in Thailand and Apple's iOS default typeface. We used this font as a control, as people are widely familiarised with it. With the help of Boom Suksumek, a list of 150 non-sense but pronounceable strings was prepared. Three similar-looking alternatives were written for each item using Punsongserm's map of visually similar Thai letterforms as a reference. Procedure Participants were asked to fixate on the centre of the display. A string of letters would appear centered at an initial point size of 1pt, increasing in size at a constant rate, reaching a maximum size of 250pt after 15 seconds. The participant was asked to press a button as soon as they could read the string. Two alternating noise masks would then appear for 0.5 seconds each, before the participant had to correctly choose the string among three similar-looking options. The screen was placed 2.5 metres away from the participant. The sample size was of 41 participants, with an average age of 34.5 years. They were recruited through convenience sampling, and all were native speakers of Thai. Results Our first experiment found that the **presence of loops makes a difference** in how quickly people can read Thai text. A repeated-measures ANOVA study was performed on the data. The main findings from this study were: ● The looped typeface was easier to read than both its loopless alternate and the Thonburi typeface. ● A person's age plays a significant role in how quickly they can read each typeface. But interestingly, age affected reading speed differently for each typeface: ○ Younger readers found Zed Text **Looped** more challenging to read. ○ Older readers had more difficulty with Zed Text **Loopless**. ○ Thonburi typeface seemed to be equally readable for all age groups. These results suggest that when choosing a typeface for distance reading, the age of the expected reader strongly matters. Results suggest looped text is better for older readers, while younger individuals read loopless text more efficiently. ## Measuring continuous reading performance (N=38) Building upon the previous distance reading experiment, the second study introduced a continuous reading task to further investigate the effects of loops on reading performance. This experiment assesses the impact of loops by measuring **reading speed**, **reading comprehension** and **response time** for the comprehension questions. Materials The same two Thai typefaces used in Experiment 1 were used to set the text in Experiment 2. A third very narrow looped Thai typeface was introduced (Typotheque's Greta Compressed), as previous literature shows text set in a very narrow typeface is slower and harder to read. Twenty-four extracts from popular Thai tales were selected by a native speaker. All were written in contemporary and simple-to-understand Thai, and were adapted to have a similar length (between 300 and 350 characters). A comprehension question with four multiple-choice answers was prepared for each passage. Procedure The participants sat one metre away from a larger 45-inch landscape display. The participant was asked to press a controller when they were ready to start reading. A cross would cue them to the first letter of the paragraph. After reading the stimuli, they were asked to press a key again to proceed to the comprehension question. Two noise masks were shown after the text to remove after image, for 0.5 seconds each. This task was repeated for the 24 texts. Additionally, a Tobii Pro Glasses 2 eye-tracker was used to confirm reading times. Results The data used in the analysis was reading time, reading comprehension and response times. Reading time was calculated as the average character reading time. A repeated-measures ANOVA study was performed on the data. The key findings from this study were: ● A small significant difference was found between looped and loopless text, in favour of looped. ● The harder to read typeface, Greta Compressed, was significantly outperformed by both Zed Text Looped and Loopless, proving the method's capacity to appropriately measure difference. ● Age did not affect the results for any typeface. No differences in reading comprehension or response times were found between text conditions. ## Measuring attitude toward loops (N=139) Last, to analyse beyond performance, we were also interested in measuring the perceptual consequences caused by loops. To achieve this, we designed a survey study, which was distributed online, divided in these two parts: ● **Part 1: Implicit measurements.** To understand how individuals feel about loops, _implicitly._ ● **Part 2: Explicit measurements.** To understand if people _explicitly_ prefer looped or loopless text. Materials We expected the attitude toward loops to be influenced by the application of the text. Therefore, it was not appropriate to assess attitude toward loops using text in a vacuum. Six applications of text were chosen: Text in a book, text on a website, text on a poster, text on branding material, text on a car's infotainment user interface and text on a smart watch's user interface. Part 1: Implicit measurements Participants were shown the 12 graphics (six for looped and six for loopless) in a random order. For each graphic, the participant was asked to complete questions about readability (rating 1 to 100) and choose labels that apply to this text from: modern, classical, fun, boring, familiar, youthful, old-fashioned, formal, artistic, elegant, ugly, honest, untrustworthy and unusual. Part 2: Explicit measurements After rating the 12 texts, these were shown again, now in pairs. For this part, looped and loopless sat side by side, and participants were asked to use a 1–100 slider to show their preference for either. Sampling A total of 139 participants (average age of 42.6 years, in the range 20–70 years) completed an online survey. Participants were recruited via convenience sampling, as well as through two direct sources. Results It was observed that loops strongly influence a feeling of readability, regardless of the format of text the looped text is present in. This effect was not mediated by age, indicating that people of all ages perceive text with loops as significantly more readable. We observed that by removing and including loops, the connotations of each text would change. This was particularly interesting where antonyms were used, such as 'modern' and 'classical', which showed strongly opposing results. It was also interesting to see that 'honest' and 'untrustworthy' showed somewhat similar opposing effects, as well as 'familiar' and 'unusual'. ## Final remarks **The results from this research provide a snapshot into the contemporary perception of Thai loops. Remarkably, the findings indicate that users are definitely not indifferent to this feature.** When it comes to paragraph reading, our results strongly support the notion that looped text is beneficial for paragraph reading. Participants read looped text significantly faster than the same text without loops. Moreover, when surveyed, Thai readers reported that the presence of loops eases their reading, and they prefer looped text for longer reading sessions. For paragraph reading, it is therefore strongly recommended to use looped Thai over loopless. But using looped text comes at a cost. Participants surveyed show a solid association with loops: They are strongly linked to tradition. Whilst looped text elicited the use of labels like "classical" and "formal", its loopless counterpart was more often associated with words like "modern" and "unusual". **Preference for looped over loopless text was shown to depend on two factors: The age of the reader and the type of text. For settings where more text is presented, looped is preferred for all users. Loopless was only preferred by younger participants in settings where less text was present.** But the most surprising of our findings pertains to the effects of age in reading acuity. Whilst participants showed overall improved readability in the presence of loops, a different story is told when it comes to reading acuity. Here, our research shows that, whilst older participants decipher looped better than loopless, younger participants discern loopless text better than looped. We believe this is proof of the changing typographic landscape of Thailand, which has seen an increased use of loopless in recent years. We hypothesize that younger readers learnt to read in a typographic landscape with much more presence of loopless text. Older participants did not have the same amount of exposure, as loopless text was popularized in the 90s. What is clear is that this research empirically confirms the general notion that Thai loops are linked to increased readability. The knowledge generated by this study will hopefully help the design community take more informed decisions in regards to loops. Additionally, we hope that this work will spark more legibility research on World scripts, which have been heavily neglected by the normally Latin-centric scientific community. ``` Create a practical flowchart web app for designers to decide when to use looped vs. loopless Thai fonts, based on the findings above.

A system prompt was added to support web rendering