BeLikeNative

Want to make your app or website work seamlessly in multiple languages? Here is the key: design with translation in mind from the start. Translation-friendly designing interfaces save time, reduce costs, and deliver a smoother experience for global users. Here are 10 actionable tips to get started:

1. Plan Early: Incorporate translation needs during the design phase to avoid costly redesigns later.
2. Separate Text from Code: Keep all text in external files for easier updates and translations.
3. Allow for Text Expansion: Design flexible layouts to handle longer text in some languages.
4. Use Local Formats: Adapt numbers, dates, and currencies to match regional standards.
5. Support Right-to-Left (RTL) Languages: Add RTL layouts for languages like Arabic or Hebrew.
6. Choose Unicode (UTF-8): Ensure compatibility with all languages and characters.
7. Simplify Language Selection: Use clear, intuitive options for users to choose their preferred language.
8. Adapt Images for Regions: Tailor visuals to align with local preferences and avoid cultural missteps.
9. Avoid Hardcoding Text: Use templates and placeholders instead of embedding text in code.
10. Test with Native Speakers: Get feedback from locals to ensure natural, accurate translations.

Why Designing Interfaces Matters? 

Translation-friendly design can boost productivity by 66% and save over 85 hours per month. Following these steps ensures your interface is user-friendly, globally accessible, and ready for localization.

Designing Interfaces: A Perfect Language Selector UX – Smart Interface 

1. Start Translation Planning Early While Designing Interfaces

Plan for translation right from the design phase to create effective multilingual interfaces. Getting ahead on this step helps avoid expensive redesigns and simplifies the localization process later on. Starting early ensures that your design choices align with the needs of internationalization from the ground up.

BeLikeNative emphasizes that factoring in translation during the initial stages leads to smoother and more efficient development cycles.

Why Early Translation Planning Matters While Designing Interfaces?

• Cuts down on expensive redesigns during later stages
• Delivers a consistent user experience across different languages
• Reduces technical challenges tied to language-specific tweaks
• Makes the localization process faster and easier

2. Keep Content Outside the Code While Designing Interfaces

When planning for translation, it’s crucial to keep your text separate from the code. This approach makes localization easier to manage and maintain as your system grows.

How to Implement This

• Organize Resource Files
  Store all text in resource files, categorized by language and region. For instance:

  /resources
    /en-US
      strings.json
      errors.json
    /es-ES
      strings.json
      errors.json
  

• Use a Translation Database
  For dynamic content, set up a database with a structure like this:
  

  Column Name	Purpose	Example
  Key	ID for the content	welcome_message
  Language	ISO language code	en-US
  Content	Translated text	Welcome to our platform
  Last Updated	Timestamp of last change	May 2, 2025

Why Store Content Externally While Designing Interfaces?

• Quick Updates: Translators can make changes without needing a developer.
• Version History: Easily track changes and maintain a record of translations.
• Easier Expansion: Add languages without touching the core application code.
• Better Quality Control: Test translations independently of the development process.

BeLikeNative is a great example of how external content management can make integration and translation more efficient.

Best Practices to Follow

• Use version control systems for translation files.
• Set up a clear review process for all translations.
• Keep file formatting consistent across languages.
• Automate validation checks to catch errors early.

In the next section, we’ll explore additional ways to design with translation in mind.

3. Make Room for Longer Text While Designing Interfaces

When designing interfaces for translation, handling text expansion is a key challenge. Different languages often require more space, so your UI needs to handle varying text lengths without breaking.

Planning for Text Expansion

Build UI elements that can adjust to longer text without disrupting the layout. This ensures everything stays readable, no matter the language.

Tips for Designing Around Text Expansion

Use Flexible Containers

• Design containers that can stretch horizontally.
• Add min-height and max-height properties.
• Allow text to wrap naturally.
• Leverage responsive layouts using CSS Grid or Flexbox.

Button Design That Works

Buttons should have enough padding to adjust dynamically. Here’s an example:

.button {
  padding: 12px 24px;
  min-width: 120px;
  white-space: normal;
}

Dynamic Layout Adjustments

• Use relative units like em or rem instead of fixed pixel values.
• Set proper line-height for multi-line text.
• Plan for overflow handling to avoid cut-off text.
• Ensure the layout remains stable across all languages.

Testing for Text Expansion

What to Check During QA

• Test with actual translated text to spot issues early.
• Make sure text displays correctly on different screen sizes.
• Check spacing for buttons and form elements.
• Watch for text overflow or truncation problems.
• Confirm clickable areas meet usability standards.
• Verify that the layout holds up across multiple languages.

Mistakes to Avoid While Interfaces

• Don’t use text embedded in images – it’s hard to translate.
• Avoid fixed dimensions for text containers.
• Never cut off critical information.
• Don’t rely on specific text lengths to maintain layout.

Once your design is flexible, thorough testing becomes essential to catch any remaining issues. Up next, we’ll dive into managing number and date formats for different regions.

4. Use Local Number and Date Formats While Designing Interfaces

Accurate formatting of numbers, dates, and currencies ensures interfaces follow U.S. standards. This includes dates (MM/DD/YYYY, e.g., 05/02/2025), time (12-hour AM/PM, e.g., 3:30 PM), numbers (1,234.56), and currency ($99.99).

Regional Format Standards

Here’s how to format for the U.S.:

• Dates: MM/DD/YYYY (e.g., 05/02/2025)
• Time: 12-hour format with AM/PM (e.g., 3:30 PM)
• Numbers: Use a comma for thousands and a period for decimals (e.g., 1,234.56)
• Currency: Place the dollar sign before the amount (e.g., $99.99)

Implementation Tips

Use Built-In Libraries for Formatting

Here’s how to format dates in JavaScript:

// Format date using Intl.DateTimeFormat
const date = new Date();
const formatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', {
  year: 'numeric',
  month: '2-digit',
  day: '2-digit'
});
console.log(formatter.format(date)); // Example output: 05/02/2025

For currency, use this approach:

const price = 1234.56;
const formatter = new Intl.NumberFormat('en-US', {
  style: 'currency',
  currency: 'USD'
});
console.log(formatter.format(price)); // Example output: $1,234.56

Avoid These Common Mistakes

• Hard-coding date formats instead of using libraries
• Mixing up separators (e.g., commas vs. periods)
• Assuming currency symbols are always in the same position
• Combining 12-hour and 24-hour time formats inconsistently

Testing Regional Formats While Designing Interfaces

Key Test Cases

• Date Formats: Test U.S. (05/02/2025), European (02/05/2025), and ISO (2025-05-02) formats.
• Currency Display: Verify symbol placement (e.g., $100 vs. 100€) and ensure the correct currency codes (e.g., USD, EUR).
• Number Formatting: Check large numbers, decimals, and negative values (e.g., 1,234,567.89, 0.12, -123.45).

Performance Optimization

To improve efficiency, cache formatted values:

const formatCache = new Map();

function getFormattedDate(date, locale) {
  const key = `${date}-${locale}`;
  if (!formatCache.has(key)) {
    const formatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat(locale);
    formatCache.set(key, formatter.format(date));
  }
  return formatCache.get(key);
}

This approach reduces repetitive formatting operations. Just remember to clear the cache periodically to manage memory usage effectively.

5. Add Right-to-Left Text Support While Designing Interfaces

Supporting right-to-left (RTL) languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu is crucial for reaching over 420 million native speakers. Research shows that implementing proper RTL support can significantly improve user engagement. For instance, Arabic users experienced a 37% increase in engagement on e-commerce platforms after RTL support was introduced.

How to Implement RTL Support

Start with a basic RTL CSS setup:

/* Base RTL configuration */
.rtl-container {
  direction: rtl;
  text-align: right;
}

/* Use logical properties for spacing */
.element {
  margin-inline-start: 1rem;
  padding-inline-end: 1rem;
}

Key Layout Adjustments

When adding RTL support, focus on these crucial layout elements:

These changes ensure a smoother experience for RTL users while addressing layout consistency.

Managing Mixed Content

For content that combines RTL and LTR text, use the Unicode bidirectional algorithm along with the dir="auto" attribute for inline elements. Here’s an example:

<span dir="auto">2024 مايو</span> <!-- Displays "May 2024" correctly -->

Examples of Success

Duolingo’s interface redesign for RTL users led to a 29% improvement in retention among Middle Eastern users and a 41% increase in navigation ease.

Avoid These Common Issues While Design Interfaces

• Fixed-width containers: These can cut off longer RTL text.
• Navigation elements: Ensure patterns like scrollbars appear on the left for RTL users.
• Directional icons: Double-check that icons like arrows or back buttons are properly mirrored.

Testing Your RTL Implementation

For effective testing:

• Use real content in languages like Arabic or Hebrew instead of placeholders.
• Partner with native speakers to verify cultural and contextual accuracy.
• Confirm bidirectional text works seamlessly in forms and dynamic elements.
• Test the overall navigation flow and user journey.
• Utilize tools like BeLikeNative, which offers Mirror Mode to preview RTL layouts and flag untranslated UI components.

Recent updates by Emirates Airlines showed that proper RTL implementation not only improved usability but also reduced layout-related support tickets by 19%. Comprehensive testing ensures your interface is functional and user-friendly.

6. Choose Unicode Text Encoding While Designing Interfaces

Selecting Unicode (UTF-8) ensures support for all languages, offering extensive character coverage, efficient variable-width encoding, and compatibility with ASCII. This choice simplifies global collaboration, much like other design decisions mentioned earlier.

Why Use Unicode While Designing Interfaces?

Here’s why Unicode (UTF-8) stands out:

• Covers a wide range of modern writing systems
• Efficiently stores characters with variable widths
• Maintains compatibility with ASCII
• Includes strong error-checking capabilities

How to Implement It

1. Database Configuration
Set your database to use UTF-8 with commands like:

ALTER DATABASE yourdb CHARACTER SET = utf8mb4 COLLATE = utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

2. HTML Meta Tags
Include <meta charset="UTF-8"> in your HTML to define the character encoding.

3. Server Configuration
Adjust your web server settings by adding:

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

Mistakes to Watch Out For

Steer clear of these common issues:

• Using mixed encodings across different system components
• Relying on outdated encodings like ISO-8859-1
• Skipping thorough multilingual testing

Testing Unicode Integration

Use this checklist to verify proper Unicode handling:

1. Ensure all database connections are configured for UTF-8.
2. Test multilingual input, file uploads, and email displays to confirm they handle Unicode correctly.
3. Check that special characters render properly across your interface.

Performance Tips

Modern systems manage UTF-8 efficiently. For optimal performance:

• Use consistent normalization methods (like NFC).
• Index Unicode columns correctly.
• Apply compression for large text data when needed.

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7. Designing Interfaces: Make Language Selection Simple

A clear and easy-to-use language selector is key to creating a user-friendly interface for international audiences. It helps reduce confusion and ensures users can quickly find their preferred language.

Use visual elements like small flag icons to make the selector instantly recognizable. Displaying language names in their native script or format can also make the process more intuitive and user-friendly.

For example, BeLikeNative offers support for over 80 languages, showing how a well-designed language selector can improve the overall experience. Additionally, consider updating regional visuals to better align with local preferences and enhance localization.

8. Designing Interfaces: Adjust Images for Each Region

Images play a big role in how users interact with and understand content. To create an interface that works across different regions, it’s important to tailor visuals to align with local norms and expectations.

Why Cultural Context Matters

An image that makes sense in one part of the world might send a completely different message elsewhere. For instance, a ‘thumbs up’ gesture is widely seen as positive in Western countries, but in some Middle Eastern cultures, it can carry a negative meaning.

The Role of Color in Visuals

Colors can evoke different emotions or meanings depending on the culture. Here’s how some colors are perceived:

• Red: Symbolizes danger in Western countries but is associated with good fortune in China.
• White: Represents simplicity in the West but is linked to mourning in parts of East Asia.
• Green: Holds particular importance in Islamic cultures.

Tips for Image Formatting While Designing Interfaces

To ensure visuals are effective across regions, follow these tips:

• Cultural symbols: Swap out symbols that are specific to one region for ones that are more universally understood or locally relevant.
• Text in graphics: Avoid embedding text in images to make translations easier.
• Directional elements: Adjust arrows, menus, and other navigation indicators for languages that read from right to left.

These practices help streamline the process of adapting visuals for global audiences.

Putting It All Together

To manage visuals effectively, organize images into separate folders for each region you support. Use a clear naming system, such as image_name_region_code.png (e.g., success_icon_ar.png for Arabic-speaking regions).

Working with local experts can help fine-tune these visuals, ensuring they align with cultural expectations. This approach ties in perfectly with earlier translation and localization efforts.

9. Designing Interfaces: Avoid Fixed Text in Code

Hardcoding text in your code can create problems when translating your application into multiple languages. It often results in errors, inconsistencies, and extra work for developers and translators.

Why Hardcoding Text Causes Problems

Here’s what can go wrong with hardcoded text:

• String concatenation can break when word order varies across languages.
• Translators may struggle with hardcoded strings because they lack proper context.
• Updating text requires changes in the code, which is time-consuming.
• Translations can become inconsistent throughout the application.

How to Manage Text Effectively

To avoid these issues, store all text in resource files and use message templates. This approach ensures translations are consistent and easier to manage.

1. Externalize Text

• Keep all text outside the code to make updates easier.
• Avoid string concatenation in your code to prevent errors with word order.
• Provide translators with enough context to ensure accurate translations.
• Support plural forms and other language-specific rules.

2. Use Message Templates

Here’s an example of how to handle dynamic content:

// Avoid this:
let message = "Hello " + userName + "! You have " + messageCount + " messages.";

// Do this instead:
let message = translate("welcome_message", {
    user: userName,
    count: messageCount
});

3. Support Variable Content

Make sure your setup can handle:

• Different word orders for various languages.
• Gender-specific translations where needed.
• Proper pluralization rules.
• Formatting for numbers, dates, and other localized elements.

Leverage Frameworks for Better Results While Designing Interfaces

Use frameworks designed to manage translations effectively. Look for features like:

• Externalized string storage.
• Validation that accounts for context and formatting.
• Tools for automating translation updates.

10. Designing Interfaces: Get Feedback from Native Speakers

Getting feedback from native speakers helps ensure your interface feels natural and aligns with local cultural norms.

Why Native Speaker Testing Is Important

Native speakers can catch issues that automated tools might miss, such as:

• Cultural Context: They understand local customs and sensitivities, which can impact user experience.
• Natural Language Flow: They spot phrases that, while technically correct, might feel awkward or unnatural.
• Regional Variations: They’re aware of dialect differences and local preferences.

These insights fine-tune your localization efforts, making your interface more user-friendly and culturally appropriate.

Best Practices for Native Speaker Testing While Designing Interfaces

• Set Clear Objectives: Define what you want to test, outline specific scenarios, and use standardized feedback forms to streamline the process.
• Prioritize Key Elements: Focus on areas like navigation labels, error messages, help content, call-to-action buttons, and form instructions.
• Document Cultural Insights: Build a knowledge base for each market to ensure consistency in future updates and features.

Common Issues Spotted by Native Speakers

“We invested countless hours carefully selecting words, translating text, refining, adding new phrases, and adjusting style and tone.” – Belikenative

Practical Tips for Implementation

• Regularly involve a diverse group of native speakers to capture a range of cultural perspectives.
• Have them test your interface in realistic scenarios to identify potential issues.
• Use their feedback to refine translations and adjust for cultural nuances, keeping your interface relevant and user-friendly.

Designing Interfaces: Translation Approach Comparison

Building on earlier discussions about planning principles, this section compares different approaches to translation planning and how they influence interface development.

Comparing Translation Planning Approaches

These comparisons highlight how planning for translation early on can save time and resources while improving outcomes.

Critical Interface Elements for Translation

Addressing specific interface components during the initial stages of development ensures smoother localization.

Text Components

• Navigation menus and labels
• Error messages and system notifications
• Form fields and instructions
• Help documentation
• Call-to-action buttons

Technical Considerations

• Support for Unicode characters
• Handling of bidirectional text
• Localized formats for dates and numbers
• Font compatibility across various scripts

Impact on Development Process

When translation planning is integrated early, it simplifies the development process and boosts overall efficiency.

Key Benefits:

• Reduces last-minute fixes and promotes better team coordination
• Delivers a consistent experience for users in all supported languages

Technical Implementation Considerations

Early planning equips developers to create systems that can efficiently handle translations in as many as 80 languages. In contrast, late planning often leads to temporary fixes, which can result in more work down the line.

Conclusion

Creating interfaces that support multiple languages effectively is crucial. The strategies outlined in this guide provide a solid foundation for building user-friendly multilingual experiences.

Planning and designing early can increase productivity by 66% and save over 85 hours every month. A great example is BeLikeNative, which demonstrates how built-in translation tools can streamline workflows and support more than 80 languages.

Here’s how translation-friendly interfaces can make a difference:

These advantages highlight why early planning and the right tools are essential.

FAQs

Why is early translation planning important for reducing costs and enhancing user experience?

Early translation planning is crucial because it helps identify potential language or design challenges before development progresses too far. By addressing these issues early, you can streamline workflows, minimize costly revisions, and ensure a smoother translation process.

Additionally, planning ahead allows you to design interfaces that accommodate different languages and cultural nuances, resulting in a more intuitive and inclusive user experience. This proactive approach saves time, reduces expenses, and ensures your platform is accessible to a global audience.

What are the best practices for managing text in interfaces designed for easy translation and updates?

To effectively manage text in translation-friendly interfaces, focus on maintaining consistency and simplifying updates. Use a translation management system (TMS) to store, organize, and manage all translatable content, ensuring uniformity across languages and streamlining updates.

Additionally, tools that support rephrasing, translating, and improving text in multiple languages can significantly boost productivity and enhance the workflow. Prioritize solutions that integrate seamlessly into your existing processes and allow for customization of tone, style, and language preferences.

Why should translation interfaces be tested by native speakers, and what issues can they help uncover?

Testing translation interfaces with native speakers is crucial because they bring a deep understanding of cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, and linguistic accuracy that automated tools or non-native testers might miss. Their feedback ensures the interface feels natural and intuitive for the target audience.

Native speakers can help identify common issues such as:

• Awkward phrasing or unnatural translations that might confuse users.
• Cultural mismatches that could make the interface feel out of place or inappropriate.
• Formatting problems like text overflow, improper date or currency formats, or alignment issues caused by varying text lengths in different languages.

By incorporating their insights, you can create a more polished, user-friendly experience for global audiences.

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• 5 Tips for Clear Multilingual Writing
• How to Create Multilingual-Friendly Documentation
• Managing Regional Feedback in Localization