Article · 10 min read

Bidirectionality and RTL

Google Material Design · Material Design 3 Free Intermediate

If any of your users read Urdu, Arabic, or another right to left script, your whole layout may need to mirror, and this is the clearest explainer of what that means in practice. It shows which elements flip and which stay put, and introduces thinking in leading and trailing rather than left and right. Even if you only ship Indic and English today, building this way keeps you from a painful rebuild later.

  • Mirroring flips navigation and reading flow, not just text alignment
  • Design components with leading and trailing edges, not fixed left and right
  • Some elements like media controls should never mirror
Open on m3.material.io ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I design an app that works well for users who aren't fluent in English and may switch languages?

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