Designing for Right-to-Left Languages: Essential Tips for UX Designers

For languages that use the right to left scripts, such as:
Arabic, Aramaic, Azeri, Dhivehi/Maldivian, Hebrew, Kurdish (Sorani), Persian/Farsi, and Urdu

It may be helpful to think of the site as a mirror image of a site you’d a layout in English. However, I’m listing down some different elements which you may need to consider while designing for RTL

Layout
Users will naturally be looking from right to left, so the layout of a website or application should reflect this. The horizontal navigation should start on the right side of the page, and all navigation elements, such as Login, Search, and Profile Menu, should be placed on the top left of the page instead of the right. Also, the vertical scroll bars appear on the left side of the browser window instead of the right.

Search boxes
Search boxes with “go” buttons should have action buttons to the left of the search field. This placement helps users understand the direction of the search.

Dropdown menus
Dropdown menus should drop from the left corner and display choices listed in right-aligned format. This placement helps users understand the direction of the menu and the flow of content.

Navigational icons
Navigational buttons such as back and forward arrows should be flipped horizontally. This flip helps users understand the direction of the navigation

Icons
Not all icons should be flipped. Eg. Roman letters inside the icon should not be flipped.

Images
Images should not be mirrored

URLs
English text URLs are standard.

Captcha
Even on RTL sites, I’ve seen the English captcha tool integrated.

Font Size
Consider reducing the font size of headers (if they are too large) for RTL languages. Native RTL language speakers find the font ugly when it is too large.

Numbers & Roman letters
Telephone numbers, Roman text, email addresses, and any untranslated text should still be presented in left-to-right format only.