Interface systems · 7 min read · Draft
Bilingual interfaces are a system problem
Arabic and English in one product is not a translation task. It changes type, spacing, icons and sometimes the information architecture itself.
Every bilingual product I have worked on started with the same plan: design it in English, flip it for Arabic. Every one of them ended up rebuilding the system halfway through. Here is what I now do from day one.
Tokens that know about direction
Spacing uses logical properties everywhere. Icons that imply direction are mirrored by rule, not by hand. Type scales are tuned separately for the two scripts because Arabic needs more line height at the same optical size.
Test the longest string first
Arabic product names and government entity names run long. Every component gets its worst-case string in Storybook before it gets its happy path.
If the component survives the Ministry’s full name in both scripts, it will survive anything.
Architecture is cultural
Sometimes the order of sections should differ between audiences. That is not a bug in the translation; it is the research telling you something.
