Sunny greetings, dear reader!
Designing for the world means planning for every script and layout. Switch to Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese or Vietnamese and layouts mirror, arrows misbehave, fonts break and accents get clipped. Let’s dive into the hidden challenges of global UI.
Designing for right-to-left (RTL) languages
English, German, French – we all design left to right. But switch your product into Arabic or Hebrew and suddenly the UI is mirrored.
Navigation menus flip, sliders go the other way and the “back” arrow points in the “wrong” direction. Even numbers add complexity: while Arabic text is RTL, numbers are usually left-to-right (LTR). So be careful, not everything needs to be flipped.
The result? A confusing patchwork of directions if not handled carefully.
RTL differences
When translating content to an RTL language, the layout changes in predictable ways – but some things stay the same.
What changes:
- Text aligns to the right side
- Navigation buttons appear in reverse order
- Directional icons are mirrored
What stays the same:
- Icons that don’t indicate direction
- Charts and graphs
- LTR words and digits remain left-to-right
Good to know:
- Most Arabic words are shorter than their English equivalents
- Abbreviations for days, weeks or months aren’t appropriate in Arabic
- Numbers are still read and written left-to-right in Arabic, Persian/Farsi and Hebrew
Designer’s fix:
- If applicable, mirror layouts fully not partially
- Check arrows and icons – a “forward” chevron should point left in RTL
- Make sure form fields and alignment feel natural for RTL readers
Pro tip: Always preview your design in a real RTL build – screenshots and mockups won’t reveal subtle alignment bugs. If you have a localization team, involve them early. They’ll ensure all content is delivered in the correct format for translation. Check out this helpful resource.
Fonts, line height and the invisible battles
Typography looks easy until you introduce multiple scripts.
Design a neat card in English with “Hello!” Then swap to Chinese: 你好！– suddenly the characters look cramped because your line height is tuned for Latin letters. Switch to Vietnamese and diacritics get cut off. Add Arabic and the font fallback doesn’t match at all.
Good to know:
- Font height can break your layout
- Fonts can extend above or below the usual cap height. Think Japanese or Arabic.
- Italics aren’t universal – some languages just don’t support them (bold can be difficult as well)
- And watch those accents. A missing or cut-off one can totally change a word’s meaning.
Designer’s fix:
- Use global-ready fonts (Google’s Noto family is a lifesaver)
- Set dynamic line height so accents and tall characters don’t get clipped
- Always test with CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and accented Latin text
- If you create a custom font for your product or company, make sure it is tested across all character sets you support or have a fallback font in place for locales that are not fully supported
- Make sure to leave enough space between elements (for example, titles and subtitles) not just for English, but also for taller character sets
Pro tip: Build your style guide with localization in mind. Don’t lock typography to a single Latin-friendly font – give yourself room to breathe. Check out this useful source, you might know it already.
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