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How to test a bilingual Arabic and English website before launch

A bilingual site needs more than a quick look in each language. This test plan covers direction, mixed text, forms, search, checkout, payments in test mode, emails, real phones and who signs off.

ESTASOFT
12 min read
Mint cover with two cards showing the letters Aa and an Arabic letter, with the title Test your Arabic and English site
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      Most bilingual sites are tested in one language by one person, then switched to the other language the night before launch. That is when you find English words inside Arabic menus, a price that jumps to the wrong side of a sentence, a checkout that works in English only, and an email that arrives in the wrong language.

      This article gives you a test plan that a non-developer can run and sign. It works in rounds, and each round says what to check and what a pass looks like. I used W3C internationalization pages, WCAG, Google's documentation and Shopify's Help Center, all read on 4 November 2026. Where a page does not answer a question, I give it as something to test, not as a claim.

      Set up the test

      Test with real content, not placeholder text. Pick ten products that include a long Arabic name, a name with an English brand inside it, a model number, a price and a description with a list. W3C's quick tips say text expands in translation and advise in-country feedback on images, video and examples. For the Arabic test, use someone who reads Arabic as a first language, and never let the person who built the site be the only tester. Shopify's Preview store button shows the storefront as customers see it, so use it before the store password comes off. If you would rather hand the work to a quality and testing team, give them this plan.

      Make a sheet with the journeys down the side (browse, search, product page, cart, checkout, account, order email) and the language and device across the top. Every cell gets a pass or fail and a screenshot.

      Round 1: language and direction in the code

      W3C says to set the dir attribute to rtl on the html element of a right-to-left page, and to set direction in markup, not in CSS. It also says a language declaration does not set direction, so a page needs both the lang and the dir attributes. WCAG 3.1.1 (level A) requires the page language to be machine-readable. WCAG 3.1.2 (level AA) asks for a language mark on passages in another language, with proper names exempt. Ask your developer to show the html tag of five page types in each language. Then check by eye:

      • No English menu items, buttons or error messages on Arabic pages. Shopify says an untranslated field falls back to the default language, so gaps show as English. Google says it works out a page's language from its visible content and advises one language for each page's content and navigation.
      • The language switcher names each language in its own script, as W3C's quick tips advise, and every page links to its twin in the other language.

      Pass when both languages are declared correctly on every page type and a reader finds no stray words.

      Round 2: mixed text, numbers and mirrored layout

      W3C's article on inline markup says a phrase in the opposite direction, such as a brand, a URL or a quotation, should be wrapped in markup that sets its direction. When the direction of inserted text is not known in advance, it suggests dir set to auto, or the bdi element, and its example is a restaurant name from a database. Product names, reviews and customer names are the same kind of text, so test them. W3C's page on Unicode controls adds two faults: a number after a right-to-left phrase can be pulled into the wrong run (its example is Hebrew), and punctuation between an Arabic phrase and a Latin word can land on the wrong side. Test:

      • An Arabic product title that ends with an English brand, and one that ends with a number.
      • Prices, phone numbers, dates, order numbers and discount codes, on the page and in emails.
      • A sentence that ends with a full stop or question mark after an English word.

      Decide your digit style on purpose. W3C's Arabic layout requirements (a draft note dated 2 October 2025) say numbers are written left to right even in Arabic text, and describe digit families by region, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq as examples for Arabic-Indic digits and Algeria and Morocco as examples for European digits. It does not settle the question for your customers, so ask them. Then check that every page, email and invoice uses one style, and that forms accept the other style if someone types it.

      For mirrored layout, check the logo position, menu, breadcrumbs, sliders, progress steps and tables. W3C notes that setting dir on a table reverses its columns, and recommends logical CSS such as margin-inline-start and text-align: start rather than left and right. As one example, the Wikimedia Codex design system guide says to mirror icons that show horizontal direction, such as forward and back arrows, and not to mirror clocks, calendars or check marks. That is one design system's guidance, not a standard, so agree your own icon rules with your designer. Pass when nothing sits on the wrong side, and no arrow points the wrong way.

      Round 3: fonts, line height and forms

      W3C's Arabic layout requirements say Arabic ascenders and descenders reach much further than Latin ones, so mixed lines need careful alignment. Check headings that wrap to two lines, buttons with long Arabic labels, and cards where a long name sits next to a short English one. WCAG 1.4.12 (level AA) says content must not lose content or function when a user sets line height to at least 1.5 times the font size, paragraph spacing to 2 times, letter spacing to 0.12 times and word spacing to 0.16 times. The page does not say how this applies to Arabic, so run the test on Arabic pages and look for clipped text.

      Forms need the most hands-on time:

      • Type an Arabic name, an English name, a long name and a single name. W3C advises dir set to auto on form inputs and inserted text.
      • Type a phone number with and without a country code, with spaces, and with Arabic-Indic digits. W3C's quick tips warn against building wrong assumptions about phone number lengths into validation, and note that address layouts differ between cultures.
      • Fill the address form with an area, a building, a landmark and a P.O. box. Ask your courier what it needs, and test that nothing is lost.
      • Switch keyboards between fields on a real phone. Check that autofill and the email field stay readable.

      Round 4: search, checkout, payments and emails

      Search. The Shopify search page I read lists 33 supported languages, and Arabic was not among them. The page shows no date and the list can change, so check the current list. The page does not say how search treats other languages, and its predictive search page says predictive search is not available in all languages. So test, do not assume. Search for ten product names in Arabic, in English, and in the spellings your Arabic staff say customers really use, such as with or without diacritics. Check the no-results page and the filter labels.

      Checkout. Shopify says checkout follows the language the customer browsed in, and its language requirements page listed Arabic among 49 languages with checkout translations when I read it. Run a full order in each language. Include a discount code, a logged-in and a logged-out customer, your shipping rates and a failed payment, all of which Shopify's test order page lists.

      Payments. Shopify offers a test payment gateway and Shopify Payments test mode. Its page says manual methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer do not support test mode, so you must place a real order to test them. Plan how to cancel it so no courier is sent. It also says some local payment methods are not available at checkout while Shopify Payments test mode is on. Its example is a European method, so ask which of your methods are affected. For any other gateway, ask the provider for its test mode and its list of test cards. Only orders paid with Shopify's test gateway or its Payments test mode can be deleted, so archive the rest. Turn test mode off before launch, because customers cannot place live orders while it is on.

      Emails. Shopify says a notification that has translations reaches the customer in the language they used when ordering. Translate each template under Settings, then Notifications, then Localize. Save first, then use Preview and choose a language. Then place a real Arabic order and open the email on a phone. Check direction, the order number, product names, the tracking link and the sender name.

      Round 5: devices, search engines and accessibility

      Chrome's documentation calls device mode a first-order approximation, says your code does not run on a phone, and advises using a real device when unsure. So test on at least one iPhone and one Android phone, plus a small screen and a large one. Check Arabic headings and body text on each. Tab through each page with a keyboard and confirm the focus follows reading order in both languages.

      For search engines, Google says hreflang tags are ignored unless pages link to each other, and each version must list itself. Shopify says it adds the tags automatically for markets with their own domain, subdomain or folder. View the source of an English page and its Arabic twin and confirm each lists both. Google also advises against redirecting visitors by a guess about their language, so test in a private window with the browser set to each language. If you are moving from another platform, run the old-address checks from our guide to moving an Arabic and English store. For fonts and search, see our article on right-to-left layout, fonts and search; for hreflang detail, our hreflang guide.

      The sign-off sheet

      These are launch blockers:

      1. Checkout, payment or an order email fails in either language.
      2. A price, phone number or order number reads wrongly in either language.
      3. English text on Arabic pages along the buying path, or the reverse.
      4. Test mode is still on, or test orders are still in the live order list.
      5. Hreflang or language declarations are wrong on any page type.
      6. Any redirect from an old address lands on the wrong language.

      Then name who signs. The Arabic reader signs the Arabic journeys, the English reader signs the English ones, the person who handles orders signs the emails and cash on delivery orders, and the developer signs the code and redirects. Keep the filled sheet with its screenshots and the test order numbers. For the wider launch list, read our guide to launching an online store in the Middle East.

      ESTASOFT offers quality and testing. To plan a test round, send a short brief on the contact page.

      Sources

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