Article published In: Information Design Journal
Vol. 28:2 (2023) ► pp.178–194
Empirical assessment of the legibility of the Naskh-style typeface used on Arabic road signs
Published online: 7 September 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.22022.elb
https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.22022.elb
Abstract
Most studies on the legibility of highway signs focus on the legibility of Latin typefaces. Few legibility studies of Arabic typefaces are considered in highway signage. The current study is an empirical assessment of the legibility of the Boutros Advertisers Naskh Arabic typeface, the typeface commonly used in road signage in most Middle Eastern and North African countries. The study uses common highway signs configuration within a laboratory-based simulated driving experience. The results show that Boutros Advertisers Naskh has a high threshold, which indicates low legibility on road signs, and that it requires significant improvements for continued use.
Article outline
- Introduction
- The current study
- What is legibility?
- Arabic Type
- Assessment of Legibility Material and Methods
- Participants
- Apparatus, stimuli, and task
- The word set
- Threshold measure procedure
- Results
- Discussion
References
References (39)
Abu Dhabi manual of uniform traffic control devices. (2020). Abu Dhabi Government – Department of Municipalities and Transports, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Al-Madani, H., & ai (2002). Assessment of drivers’ comprehension of traffic signs based on their traffic, personal and social characteristics. Janahi, A. Transportation Research Record, 51, 63–76.
(2004). Comprehension of signs: Driver demographic and traffic safety characteristics. The human factor of transport signs, 1691–183.
Al-Omari, B. H., Barqawi, N. R., & Abu-Lebdeh, G. (2001). Driver Comprehension of Selected Traffic Signs in Jordan. In Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Washington DC.
Almuhajri, M. (2013). Arabic E-reading: Studies on Legibility and Readability for Personal Digital Assistants [Masters Thesis]. Concordia University.
Bateman, S., Gutwin, C., & Nacenta, M. (2008). Seeing things in the clouds: The effect of visual features on tag cloud selections. In Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (pp. 193–202).
Beier, S., & Oderkerk, C. A. T. (2019). Smaller visual angles show greater benefit of letter boldness than larger visual angles. Acta Psychologica, 1991, 102904.
(2021). High letter stroke contrast impairs letter recognition of bold fonts. Applied Ergonomics, 971, 103499.
Beier, S., Sand, K., & Starrfelt, R. (2017). Legibility implications of embellished display typefaces. Visible Language, 51(1), 112–133.
Bernard, J. B., Kumar, G., Junge, J., & Chung, S. T. (2013). The effect of letter-stroke boldness on reading speed in central and peripheral vision. Vision research, 841, 33–42.
Burmistrov, I., Zlokazova, T., Ishmuratova, I., & Semenova, M. (2016). Legibility of light and ultralight fonts: Eye tracking study. In Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 1–6).
Chahine, N. (2012). Reading Arabic: Legibility Studies of Arabic Script [PhD Thesis]. Leiden University.
Dyson, M. C., & Beier, S. (2016). Investigating typographic differentiation: Italics are more subtle than bold for emphasis. Information Design Journal, 22(1), 3–18.
Dobres, J., Chahine, N., & Reimer, B. (2017). Effects of ambient illumination, contrast polarity, and letter size on text legibility under glance-like reading. Applied Ergonomics, 601, 68–73.
Dobres, J., Chahine, N., Reimer, B., Gould, D., Mehler, B., & Coughlin, J. F. (2016). Utilizing psychophysical techniques to investigate the effects of age, typeface design, size and display polarity on glance legibility. Ergonomics, 59(10), 1377–1391.
Dobres, J., Chrysler, S. T., Wolfe, B., Chahine, N., & Reimer, B. (2017). Empirical assessment of the legibility of the Highway gothic and Clearview signage fonts. Transportation Research Record, 2624(1), 1–8.
Farell, B., & Pelli, D. G. (1999). Psychophysical methods, or how to measure a threshold and why. In R. H. S. Carpenter & J. G. Robson (Eds.). [URL], Vision research: A practical guide to laboratory methods. Oxford University Press.
Ganayim, D., & Ibrahim, R. (2013). How do typographical factors affect reading text and comprehension performance in Arabic? Human Factors, 55(2), 323–332.
Garvey, P., Klena, M., Eie, W., Meeker, D., & Pietrucha, M. The Legibility of the Clearview Typeface System versus Standard Highway Alphabets on Negative- and Positive-Contrast Signs (2015). Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute. Pennsylvania State University.
Garvey, P. M., Pietrucha, M. T., & Meeker, D. (1997). Effects of font and capitalization on legibility of Guide signs. Transportation Research Record, 1605(1), 73–79.
Ghadban, N. R., Abdella, G. M., Alhajyaseen, W., et al. (2018). Analyzing the impact of human characteristics on the comprehensibility of road traffic signs. Khalifa, K. N. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Bandung, Indonesia (pp. 2210–2219).
Holick, A., Chrysler, S., Park, E., & Carlson, P. Evaluation of the Clearview font for negative contrast traffic signs. Federal Highway Administration/TX-06/0-4984-1 (2006). Texas Transportation Institute, and College Station (pp. 1–130).
Institute of Transportation Engineers (1992). Traffic engineering handbook. In J. L. Pline (Ed.). Prentice Hall.
Ismail, A. A. I. (2012). Comprehension of posted highway traffic signs in Iraq. Tikrit Journal of engineering Sciences, 191, 62–70.
Lund, O. (1999). Knowledge construction in typography: The case of legibility research and the legibility of sans serif typefaces [PhD Thesis]. University of Reading.
Mahgoub, A. O., & Choe, P. (2020, December). Comparing design preference of guide road signs by native Arabic speakers and international speakers in the State of Qatar. In IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM) 2020. IEEE (pp. 504–508).
Miles, J., Kotwal, B., Hammond, S., & Ye, F. (2014). Evaluation of guide sign font. Texas A&M transportation institute.
Mohammed, H., & Toum, A. (2017). Role of Arabic typography in improving readability of traffic signs [Translated] (2017)-6732. University of Science and Technology (Sudan) (SUST) Journal of Humanities, 18(1) (pp. 271–292). ISSN (text): 1858–6724. e-ISSN (online).
Jordan manual on devices: Road signs, signals, and road markings. (2001). Ministry of Public Work and Housing.
Pelli, D. G., & Farrell, B. (1995). Psychophysical methods. In M. Bass (Ed.), Handbook of optics, 1. Fundamentals, techniques, and design (pp. 291.1–29.13). McGraw-Hill.
Sheedy, J. E., Subbaram, M. V., Zimmerman, A. B., & Hayes, J. R. (2005). Text legibility and the letter superiority effect. Human Factors, 47(4), 797–815.
Slattery, T. J., & Rayner, K. (2010). The influence of text legibility on eye movements during reading. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(8), 1129–1148.
United Nations (2021). THE 17 GOALS – Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations – Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Sustainable Development. [URL]
Taamneh, M., & Alkheder, S. (2018). Traffic sign perception among Jordanian drivers: An evaluation study. Transport Policy, 661, 17–29.
Tinker, M. A. (1963). Influence of simultaneous variation in size of type, width of line, and leading for newspaper type. Journal of Applied Psychology, 47(6), 380–382.
Waller, R. (2007). Comparing typefaces for airport signs. Information Design Journal, 15(1), 1–15.