Towards Usability Guidelines for the Design of Effective Arabic Websites: Design Practices and Lessons Focusing on Font and Image usage

TL;DR

This study analyzes the font and image design practices of popular Arabic websites, revealing inconsistencies with international guidelines and cultural influences affecting usability and aesthetics.

Contribution

It provides an in-depth analysis of Arabic web design practices, highlighting discrepancies and cultural influences, and offers guidelines for improving usability.

Findings

Significant variation in font types and sizes used.

Heavy image usage impacts site loading times.

Cultural elements influence image choices and design.

Abstract

The Arabic websites constitute 1% of the web content with more than 225 million viewers and 41% Internet penetration. However, there is a lack of design guidelines related to the selection and use of appropriate font type and size and images in Arabic websites. Both text and images are vital multimedia components of websites and thereby were selected for investigation in this study. The herein paper performed an indepth inspection of font and image design practices within 73 most visited Arabic websites in Saudi Arabia according to Alexa Internet ranking in the first quarter of 2019. Our exhaustive analysis showed discrepancies between the international design recommendations and the actual design of Arabic websites. There was a considerable variation and inconsistency in using font types and sizes between and within the Arabic websites. Arabic Droid Kufi was used mostly for styling page titles and navigation menus, whilst Tahoma was used for styling paragraphs. The font size of the Arabic text ranged from 12 to 16 pixels, which may lead to poor readability. Images were used heavily in the Arabic websites causing prolonged site loading times. Moreover, the images strongly reflected the dimensions of the Saudi culture, especially collectivism and masculinity. Current Arabic web design practices are compared against the findings from past studies about international designs and lessons aiming at ameliorating the Arabic web design are inferred.