A Developer’s Guide To User Experience In App Localization

A Developer’s Guide To User Experience In App Localization
it struggles to display foreign language equivalents. Efforts to standardize on one set of
dimensions for a language with medium space requirements may not work either, especially
when volume expansion and contraction can double or halve text lengths, respectively.
The best solution or compromise may be different in each case. It is likely you will only recover a
reasonable UI and UX that works for different localizations by trying different options and
getting native speaker input. However, some options might include:
● Using dropdown menus to disguise length differences (this may lead to more clicks/taps
being required, thus degrading usability)
● Dynamic layouts that display longer texts on two lines instead of one (visually, this may
look inconsistent between different localizations)
● Programmatic changes to layouts, driven by the language or locale (country/language
combination) of the localization. This is a possible solution to the changing number of
name fields between different localizations – See the “Don’t Make Users Think” section
above.
Right To Left And Left To Right Displays
Right to left (RTL) languages such as Arabic and Hebrew not only change the direction of text
compared to English, for instance, but they also change notions of time and sequences of
actions. RTL native language speakers may therefore expect to see a “trash can” on the left of
the screen, rather than the right, because that is where they naturally end up before taking a
final action to throw something away. Similarly, “next” and “back” buttons will logically be on
the left and the right, respectively, instead of on the right and the left, as in English language
screens. In RTL displays, time runs from right to left. Watch out also for icons used to indicate
functions such as text justification. They too will need to read from right to left, for example,
with a “ragged left” icon, instead of a “ragged right” one.
App interfaces that are highly dependent on lateral movement to make their logic and user
experience work properly for LTR languages, may need to be rethought and redesigned for RTL
languages, if the same quality of UX is to be achieved. This is yet another aspect that is best
handled in the initial design phase, rather than trying to change an existing app. Sometimes you
will not have the choice. However, if you are in the fortunate position of starting to design a new
app, you can take these aspects into account, according to the different localizations you think
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