Towards Usability Guidelines for the Design of Effective Arabic Websites: Design Practices and Lessons Focusing on Font and Image usage
Abdallah Namoun, Ahmad B. Alkhodre

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…
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