CEPD · Module 2 — Visual and information design for screens
Arabic production flips flow — do not mirror English layouts without rebalancing weight.
About 16 min
Practice in the lesson player
Sorting, matching, quizzes, and the module gate stay behind a free account so scored answers are not public. The teaching notes below are the same cited curriculum.
01
RTL locales start reading from the right. Icons that imply “forward” on the right edge may read as “back” in Arabic if you only mirrored X coordinates. Rebuild the hierarchy: primary action, progress, and navigation should follow locale flow. WCAG 2.2 still requires contrast, focus order, and dragging alternatives — in both directions.
02
Mirrored English: Progress bar fills left-to-right only. · Back arrow still on left “because LMS does that.” · English diagram with untranslated labels.
RTL-native layout: Progress and stepper follow reading direction. · Primary action anchored in start edge for locale. · Arabic labels on the instructional graphic.
03
Take an English Storyline file for a warehouse picker course. A one-click horizontal flip moves the Continue button to the right, but it also mirrors the aisle diagram, the arrow that means “forward,” and the focus order so keyboard users land on the last control first. RTL-native production keeps the diagram’s meaning, rewrites labels in Arabic, puts the primary action on the start edge for Arabic reading, and retests tab order in the Arabic locale. Progress that still fills left-to-right tells the learner the course was not built for them. WCAG 2.2 contrast and dragging alternatives still apply after the rebuild — they are not an English-only checklist.
04
Element | Mirror-only failure | RTL-native fix
Progress | Bar still fills from the left | Fill follows the reading direction
Diagram | Labels stay English and flipped | Arabic labels, unflipped meaning
Focus order | Tab starts at the visual end | Retest tab order in Arabic