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 What Are the Best Practices for Implementing a Right-to-Left (RTL) Design Framework in Apps?

Bradley Parker's profile image
Bradley Parker posted Fri January 30, 2026 03:49 AM

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a project that targets Arabic-speaking users, and I’m looking for guidance on implementing a scalable Right-to-Left (RTL) design framework for a mobile app.

The app is expected to grow over time, support multiple features, and potentially handle both LTR and RTL languages. Since I’m building an Arabic app, I want to make sure RTL support is handled properly from the start rather than patched in later.

I’d really appreciate input on things like:

  • How to structure layouts and components so RTL scales well

  • Whether RTL should be handled at the design system level or per screen

  • Common pitfalls developers face when targeting Arabic markets

  • Any framework-level or architectural considerations that help long-term

If you’ve worked on mobile apps for RTL languages or Middle Eastern users, I’d love to hear what approaches worked (or didn’t) for you.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Francois Brandelik's profile image
Francois Brandelik IBM Champion

Make sure that anything that is remotely text based is handled in UTF-8

Anything else may not handle both RTL and LTR...