05Arabic UI
An Arabic interface is not a translation
Flipping left to right is only the first step. What comes after is what makes an Arabic user feel the product was made for them.
Preview: the essays here are placeholders until the real ones are published.
Most products reach Arabic at the very end: strings get translated, direction gets flipped, launch is announced. Then come the small complaints no report ever captures.
01What the mirror doesn't flip
Directional arrows flip, but the play icon in a video player does not. Numbers keep running left to right even inside an Arabic sentence. And punctuation in mixed text jumps to odd places unless it is isolated.1
Translation carries words. Arabic design carries the feeling that the product understands you.
02Tone before words
“An unexpected error occurred, please try again later” is grammatically correct and humanly cold. “Your change wasn't saved. Check your connection, then press Save again” says what happened and what to do now.
A good Arabic interface starts with a writer, not a translator.