Why do Thai web sites use graphics for text?

[Hamus Yaigh]

Just curious why do so many Thai web sites and Line Accounts use graphics for text?

 

Why don't they just use text (in this case in Thai) like the rest of the world? At least then the browser translators would work!

[OneMoreFarang]

At least two possible reasons:

- With a picture the font, format, layout is exactly as the designer intended it to be. 

- Clicking on a picture is easier than clicking on text. Because with text there is space between the lines which does not react if anybody clicks on that. You can try it on this website i.e. on the right topic section.

[Boomer6969]

5 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

At least two possible reasons:

- With a picture the font, format, layout is exactly as the designer intended it to be. 

- Clicking on a picture is easier than clicking on text. Because with text there is space between the lines which does not react if anybody clicks on that. You can try it on this website i.e. on the right topic section.

But, so much for Language Localisation.

 

IMHO most government web site developers have never heard of it...

[Dinand]

The reason is lack of skills on the side of the developers under their employment.

 

If they use text they need a developer to manually update everything every time the content changes because they can't develop a proper content management system.

 

They could use existing systems that are open source but I guess the business doesn't want that.

[kimamey]

Very interesting. I'd never really noticed to be honest but I'll probably find it hard not to now. Thanks for that.

 

One thing I have seen is the habit of using titles or section headings in English and the rest in Thai. That's apart from occasions where there isn't an equivalent Thai word or it's perhaps name for something like Face Time on an iPhone which is probably trade marked and the name in English is significant.

 

I remember when we bought a new Honda Jazz 10 years ago the brochure had sections headed Interior, Exterior, Safety, Performance ect with the rest in Thai which seemed pointless. It's common in magazines as well. I once had to get my wife to give a general synopsis of an article in a magazine which was one of those with celebrity interviews and gossip. It had a picture looking down at the reasonably large breasts of a young Thai woman in a low cut top. It had the heading "Large Breasts" and then the rest in Thai. Who needs bungee jumping when all you need a dangerous question to your wife for real jeopardy.   Apparently it was about how to get bigger breasts which I dismissed immediately by saying my wife had big breasts already.  I like danger but not serious injury or death.

[Hamus Yaigh]

Currently I am getting LINE messages from a Thai Hospital in a chat forum all in Thai language and all in a large images. Like a screen capture of a Word doc saved to jpg before sending that has nothing but lines of text in it. I've seen this on web sites as well.

 

Now I have to do an OCR on it and try and extract the text data to a translate app.

[WorriedNoodle]

18 hours ago, Hamus Yaigh said:

At least then the browser translators would work!

The cynic in me sometimes thinks its a metaphor for how Thai's perceive the foreigner. A bit like dual pricing signs in Thai script to keep the foreigner in the dark. Its our way or the highway sort of thing. Of course the web site creators could just be lame as well.