Case study · Arabic website

The British Museum, in Arabic

We built the British Museum's Arabic website: over 100 pages with right-to-left layouts and specialist archaeological language. Then, in 2012, we upgraded it to match the museum's redesign.

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Client: The British Museum
Language: Arabic, right to left
Scale: 100+ pages
Timeline: Built 2010, redesigned 2012
Services: Arabic website design and development

The brief

An Arabic site the museum's CMS couldn't support

In 2010 the British Museum asked us to produce its Arabic website. The content management system it used for its other languages could not cope with Arabic.

The site needed over 100 pages in Arabic, built on a range of different page templates.

Considered

The existing CMS

Used for the museum's other languages, but it could not cope with Arabic.

Chosen

A dedicated Arabic website

Right-to-left layouts throughout
Over 100 pages across a range of templates

How we did it

More than a translation

Every template had to work for a right-to-left language with its own typography and vocabulary.

01
Right-to-left layouts
Much of the design was reversed for the right-to-left language, while keeping the museum's colour coding by section.
02
Arabic typography
Arabic words are usually longer and the lines smaller, so we adjusted the styling and increased the font size to keep text legible.
03
Specialist vocabulary
Exhibit pages use historical and archaeological language, in Egyptian Arabic, the form most commonly used among archaeologists.
04
100+ pages, adapted menus
Not every English page was carried over, so the menus were adapted to suit the Arabic site.

The result

An Arabic site that kept pace with the museum

The Arabic site launched with the museum's colour-coded sections, then moved to the new design when the English site changed.

The British Museum Arabic website after the 2012 redesign, exhibitions page — The exhibitions page after the 2012 redesign

Outcome

Redesigned in 2012 to match the English site

pages in Arabic: 100+pages in Arabic
site designs, 2010 and 2012: 2site designs, 2010 and 2012

When the British Museum updated its website design in 2012, we upgraded the Arabic version to match: new templates, applied to the existing pages, and updated content on some pages.

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