Designing Within the Lines: Practitioners' Perspectives and Visualisation Tool Evaluation in the Arabic Context
2026-07-27 • Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer InteractionComputers and Society
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied how Arabic-speaking designers create data visualizations that follow right-to-left (RTL) reading rules. They found that popular visualization tools often don’t fully support Arabic text, Eastern numerals, or correct map orientations, forcing designers to do extra work like flipping charts manually. The authors highlight that these limitations make it harder for Arabic designers to be creative and effective. They also show how existing tools reflect assumptions based on left-to-right languages and Western viewpoints. The authors suggest ways to improve tools to better support Arabic and other RTL language users.
Data visualizationRight-to-left (RTL) scriptsArabic scriptReading directionGUI (Graphical User Interface)Numeral renderingLTR (Left-to-right) scriptsMap orientationDesign toolsCultural context
Authors
Muna Alebri, Noëlle Rakotondravony, Yassine Bechqito, Georgia Panagiotidou, Lane Harrison, Hassan Aldhanhabi, Salem Alkaabi
Abstract
Design guidelines and best practices serve as references that support designers throughout the visualisation design process. While considerable effort has identified the elements that contribute to effective data visualisations, little attention has been paid to how language (scripts and reading direction), tool support, and cultural context also shape design decisions. As a result, assumptions of homogeneity persist, with visualisation practices predominantly benefiting users of English and left-to-right (LTR) scripts while overlooking the needs of over two billion Arabic script users. We investigate how Arabic-speaking visualisation practitioners design for right-to-left (RTL) scripts. We report on an analytical evaluation of seven popular GUI-based visualisation authoring tools using an Arabic dataset complemented by interviews with 11 Arabic-speaking practitioners across journalism, design, and data analysis. Our findings reveal that visualisation practitioners constantly negotiate tensions between Arabic reading conventions, "universal" LTR visual norms, and limited tool support for Arabic text, Eastern numerals, and maps. They engage in substantial labour, such as manually mirroring charts, fixing alignment issues, and stitching together multi-tool workflows, while making strategic compromises in language choice, interactivity, and chart type. Our tool analysis further reveals fragmented, inconsistent support for RTL mirroring, poor numeral rendering, and map defaults that encode geopolitical assumptions. In light of these findings, we discuss how RTL visualisation work is carried out under many constraints that affect agency and creativity. We argue that visualisation tools and defaults operationalise linguistic and geopolitical power in RTL contexts, and offer research directions and design implications that more robustly support RTL practitioners.