Why bother with game UI localization?
First of all, what constitutes the UI in video and mobile games?
Types of UI in games
A game user interface is a system of visual components that allows players to interact with the game. These components include:
- Non-diegetic UI. These are menu items outside the game world and story: settings for choosing the language, display resolution, sounds, etc.; credits; different sections or types of games (for instance, when there are daily challenges on top of regular levels); badges or leadership boards.
- Diegetic UI. It encompasses interface elements that exist within the game world: speech bubbles, inventory, character selection, etc. Based on a particular story and style of the game, it can include virtually anything.
Here’s an example of non-diegetic and diegetic UI elements in the Strange Horticulture game:
Non-diegetic UI: game menu. Source: Strange Horticulture
Diegetic UI: interface elements that exist within the game world. Source: Strange Horticulture
Why you should localize game UI
While it might seem like no big deal compared to the main game content (dialogues, characters, item descriptions, level names, etc.), the interface and navigation should be localized to ensure a consistent and culturally relevant experience.
Thanks to effective game UI localization, you can achieve the following:
- Greater playability. When interface elements are properly localized to the target culture, local players are more likely to enjoy the game and explore it longer.
- Consistency. No matter how great the localization of the main game content, cluttered UI as a result of poorly planned UI translation can ruin the impression. Preparing for UI localization will ensure that players have a consistent experience with all components of the game.
- Easy expansion to new markets. Preparing your game’s UI for translations means adopting flexible tools that allow for scalable text fields and adjustable visuals. When you already have these in place, it’s much easier to add other languages over time.
Now that it’s a bit clearer what constitutes game UI design and why it’s crucial to localize these components, let’s discover how to approach this localization process and what to be aware of.
7 game UI localization best practices
The success of your game localization will largely depend on how well your team understands each target culture and what tools you use to manage and test translations. We’ll cover the 7 things that you’ll definitely need to pay attention in game UI localization.
1. Research target markets
You can’t overestimate the role of market research. Different cultures and regions might have their unique rules and patterns of perception that will influence how they play video and mobile games.
Gather information about each location that you’re going to localize your game for to learn about the following:
- Laws that might concern your game content
- Cultural sensitivities (for instance, mentions of religions or historical events might be banned or viewed as offensive)
- Commonly accepted notations: date and time formats, units of measurement, and other norms
Understanding these cultural nuances is a crucial first step in establishing an effective game localization workflow that ensures your UI design resonates with each target audience while maintaining compliance with local regulations.
2. Make your text fields scalable for text expansion
If the original language of your game is English, it’s comparatively concise when it comes to typical menu items. You’ll need to consider that other languages will have longer words and phrases.
The button and text field size shouldn’t be the same for different languages. For instance, see how the French version is way harder to read because the button is not scaled while the text is longer:
Unscalable menu buttons result in the cluttered UI text in French translation. Source: Strange Horticulture
In the English version, all text fields are even. Source: Strange Horticulture
Make sure to check your text length when you’re in the translation process. Furthermore, you should follow these rules for UI design:
- Make the UI elements dynamically scalable and apply responsive spacing
- Opt for dividing the text into 2 lines rather than making the font size smaller
- Prepare the UI for up to 30% longer text fields compared to English
- Use drop-down menus when applicable to hide length differences from the main screen (if it doesn’t overcomplicate the navigation)
Here’s a good example of responsive spacing that makes phrases of different lengths look consistent and equally fine:
Comparatively shorter English text fields in the game menu. Source: A Little To The Left
Longer French text fields are broken down into two lines instead of making the font size smaller. Source: A Little To The Left
Here’s another example of how a dynamic UI element can be seamlessly resized to fit bigger text:
Dynamically resizable UI fields that fit text of different lengths. Source: Hidden Folks
3. Adjust the look and feel for right-to-left languages
For languages with a right-to-left orientation such as Arabic, you need to rethink the interface in general, providing players with a natural and convenient experience. This means, for instance, moving the typical menu items from right to left.
Here’s an example of the localization to Arabic in the Mini Metro game that doesn’t take the right-to-left orientation into account. Menu items are placed on the right in the Arabic version, just like they are in English and all other versions, while they would feel more natural on the left side:
Arabic localization without RTL menu orientation. Source: Mini Metro
Contrary to that, here’s a good example of taking right-to-left orientation into account in the game navigation. Here, the zoom scroll is designed to move from left to right in English and other European languages, while it moves from right to left in Arabic and Hebrew:
UI differences for RTL and LTR languages. Source: Minesweeper
What you need to do is make sure that the right-to-left nature of languages is reflected in the interface and navigation.
4. Choose fonts that support multiple languages
When choosing the typography for your game’s UI, opt for Unicode-compatible fonts that support many languages, especially those that combine glyphs and characters. Even if you’re not planning to localize to hieroglyphic languages right away, these fonts will make any future expansion easier.
Another thing to pay attention to is the default width of fonts. Based on the width, you’ll need to adjust text field padding and spacing in your game’s layouts.
In the example below, you can see how the font might look inconsistent in the Japanese localization (different alphabets are displayed with different sizes and spacing):
Font inconsistency in the Japanese game localization. Source: Hidden Folks
Additionally, when localizing to languages requiring different character encodings (e.g., UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO-8859-1), using a byte-based length check to calculate the string length is more accurate to ensure the translations are not too long as a single character might be represented by multiple bytes in certain encodings.
5. Ensure correct formatting
If you use locale-specific data in the game, such as date, time, or currencies, display them correctly for each target region. For example, some cultures have a 12-hour time notation, while others normally use a 24-hour one.
Even if it seems like a minor unimportant detail, it’s things like this that show true commitment to game localization. For instance, in the example below, the date format could be adjusted for more commonly used in Japan “year / month / day” with glyphs and numerals:
Missed opportunity to localize the date format in the Japanese version of the White Door game
6. Choose icons wisely
The perception of icons in different digital products, including games, is based on the previous experience of users, and there hasn’t been an established standard usage of many icons. With that said, you should only use icons when their meanings and context are absolutely clear. Experts also advise testing icons for recognizability and memorability.
For example, you can see some commonly used icons in the screenshot below:
Icon usage in the game menu. Source: White Door
Here, it’s easy to recognize what the icons stand for. If you have icons like these in the original version, there’s no need to additionally localize them. But if you have something more unique or culture-specific, consider changing your iconography to fit different audiences.
7. Test localized designs and game versions
When the translations are done and verified by reviewers within the localization management system, it’s not the end. You should put cycles of localization QA on your agenda to make sure that the localized versions function properly.
The two major parts of testing your game UI localization are:
1. Testing multilingual content in designs. A proper localization tool with flexible string translation can give you a unified view of your interface designs in multiple languages. For example, with Gridly, you can easily review all UI translations in your designs and adjust the layouts so that all text fields and buttons remain consistent in every language.
Gridly Figma integration
>> Explore how to localize your Figma design with Gridly
2. Engaging native speakers in playing the game. Find local players and give them an opportunity to know the game and navigate through it. Their feedback can give you valuable insights into cultural nuances, as well as into the user experience of the game in general.
With Gridly’s localization QA capabilities, you can easily categorize different issues and track your progress in translating the game’s UI.
As you can see from the different examples shown in this post, there might be a lot of inconsistencies that are hard to spot right away, which makes localization testing a crucial step. Don’t neglect different types of testing to make sure that the game released on different markets has a culturally relevant and natural look and feel.
Ensure the success of game UI localization with Gridly
Localization is a resource-intensive process that requires a lot of research and layout adjustments. Game developers are even complaining about reworking the UI as the most tedious part of their job. To minimize the efforts and eliminate possible errors, you’ll need to have a flexible localization management tool.
For studios managing UI localization across multiple projects and languages, implementing a comprehensive game localization software can significantly streamline the entire workflow. This centralized approach ensures consistency across all UI elements while enabling teams to manage translations, assets, and design iterations from a single source of truth.
Here are features in Gridly that streamline the localization process for your game UI designs. These features are crucial aspects of any localization tool, enabling flexibility and ensuring a smooth and efficient workflow.
Automation
Since UI components usually contain typical words and phrases, it makes sense to automatically pre-translate them and only have a human reviewer check if everything is correct.
Gridly Automation for pre-translation with ChatGPT
Translation memory
Given that UI elements might be repeated throughout the gaming experience, powerful translation memory can save some time on repeated fields.
Gridly Translation Memory
Multimedia support and design tool integrations
It’s crucial to provide screenshots for context or fully integrate the translation strings with the design tool to view all localized UIs at the same time.
Flexible collaboration functionality
The process of localization requires the involvement of translators and reviewers, so it’s essential that the platform allows you to set different roles and access types, as well as conveniently manage communication between parties.
Gridly user access control
When you have the right tool, it’s easier to prepare your game designs for translation, keep track of them, and review the results. We hope these tips help you prepare your gam e for successful localization and ensure that different versions will be easy to navigate and enjoyable to target audiences.
If you are interested in learning more about localization management for your games overall, and specifically in game UI design, book a quick Gridly demo to see it in action.
Frequently asked questions
What is game UI localization?
Game UI localization is the process of adapting a game’s user interface — all the menus, buttons, labels, icons, and on-screen indicators that players interact with — for different languages and regional markets. It is distinct from localizing narrative content like dialogue and item descriptions because UI elements have strict space constraints, interact directly with the game engine’s layout system, and must remain functional and readable across a wide range of languages with very different text lengths and writing systems. Poorly localized UI is one of the most visible quality signals in a released game: clipped text, misaligned buttons, and untranslated menus undermine the entire localization effort regardless of how good the narrative translation is.
What is the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic UI in games, and do both need to be localized?
Non-diegetic UI exists outside the game world and story — settings menus, language selection screens, leaderboards, credits, and navigation menus. Diegetic UI exists within the game world itself — speech bubbles, inventory screens, character selection interfaces, and in-world signage. Both need to be localized, but they present different challenges. Non-diegetic UI tends to contain shorter, more formulaic text that must fit fixed button and menu dimensions. Diegetic UI is often more integrated with the game’s visual design and narrative, which means localized text must work within the art style and world logic as well as the layout constraints.
Why does UI localization matter if the main game content is already translated?
A player’s first experience of a localized game is always through the UI — the main menu, the settings screen, the tutorial prompts. If those elements are cluttered, truncated, or inconsistent, the impression is one of low quality regardless of how carefully the narrative was translated. UI localization also directly affects playability: a button label that overflows its container, a date format displayed incorrectly for the target region, or a navigation element positioned for left-to-right reading in a right-to-left language can all create friction that discourages engagement. Localizing UI correctly also makes future market expansion significantly easier, since flexible layouts and scalable text fields can accommodate additional languages without requiring UI redesign from scratch.
How much text expansion should game UI designs account for?
Designs should plan for up to 30% more text space than the English source as a baseline. European languages — particularly German and French — are consistently longer than English, and this difference is most visible in short UI strings where a single word becomes two or three. The practical implication is that fixed-width buttons and text containers will clip text as soon as a longer translation is applied. Studios should make UI elements dynamically scalable with responsive spacing, design button containers that can expand horizontally or allow text to wrap to a second line rather than shrink the font size, and use dropdown menus where appropriate to hide length differences from primary navigation. Character limit enforcement in the localization platform ensures translators are aware of constraints before text reaches the UI.
How do you design game UI for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew?
Right-to-left languages require more than simply reversing the text direction — the entire spatial logic of the UI needs to be mirrored. Navigation elements, menus, and controls that are positioned on the right in left-to-right interfaces typically feel more natural on the left for RTL players. Scroll bars, progress indicators, and directional controls should reverse their movement direction. Text alignment, list ordering, and icon placement relative to labels all need to be reconsidered. The most effective approach is to build RTL support into the UI framework from the start of development rather than retrofitting it later — testing RTL layouts early surfaces the layout changes needed before they become expensive to implement.
What fonts should studios choose to support multilingual game UI?
Unicode-compatible fonts that support a broad range of scripts and character sets are the right foundation for any game targeting multiple markets. These fonts handle the glyph combinations required for Asian scripts, the diacritical marks common in European languages, and the Arabic and Hebrew character forms needed for RTL markets. Font selection also affects layout: different fonts have different default character widths, which means the same text container produces different amounts of visible text depending on the font applied. Studios should account for font width when setting padding and spacing in UI layouts and use byte-based character length checks when calculating string lengths for languages with multi-byte encodings such as UTF-8, where a single character may consume more bytes than a Latin character.
How should game studios handle locale-specific formatting for dates, times, and currencies?
All locale-specific data — date and time formats, currency symbols, number separators, and units of measurement — should be handled programmatically rather than hard-coded so that each market receives the correct format automatically. Japan conventionally uses a year/month/day format with glyphs; the United States uses month/day/year; much of Europe uses day/month/year. Twelve-hour versus twenty-four-hour time notation varies by region. Currency formatting — symbol position, decimal separators, and thousands separators — differs across markets in ways that can produce confusing or incorrect values if the wrong format is applied. These details appear small in isolation but collectively signal to players whether a studio has genuinely committed to serving their market or simply run the text through translation.
How should studios approach icon usage in localized game UI?
Icons should only be used when their meaning is unambiguous across all target cultures — and that clarity should be validated through testing rather than assumed. Icon perception is shaped by prior digital experience, which varies significantly by market, and there is no universal standard for most UI icons beyond a small set of very well-established conventions. Culture-specific icons — those based on objects, gestures, or concepts that are not globally recognized — should be replaced with alternatives that communicate clearly in each target market, or accompanied by text labels that remove any ambiguity. When in doubt, testing icons with target-market players before release is the most reliable way to identify symbols that are misread or confusing.
What does testing localized game UI involve and why is it a separate step?
Testing localized UI is a separate step from reviewing translations because many UI errors only become visible when localized text is rendered inside the actual game layout. A translation can be linguistically perfect and still cause truncation, overflow, or misalignment in the UI. There are two primary components. The first is reviewing UI translations inside the design tool — checking that all text fields and buttons remain readable and correctly sized across every language before the design is handed to engineering. A Figma integration allows this review to happen using the actual translation strings rather than placeholder text. The second is native-speaker playtesting — having local players navigate the game and report friction points that text review alone would not surface, including cultural mismatches in iconography, formatting, and navigation conventions.
How does Gridly support game UI localization specifically?
Gridly addresses the core workflow challenges of game UI localization through four capabilities. Character limit enforcement at the column level flags translations that exceed the available space in real time, so translators can self-correct before the issue reaches review. A Figma integration allows UI designs to be reviewed with live translation strings inside the design tool, making layout problems visible before engineering picks up the design. Translation memory ensures that repeated UI elements — common labels like “Settings,” “Back,” or “Confirm” — are always translated consistently and do not require retranslation each time they appear in a new screen. Automation allows typical UI strings to be pre-translated by machine translation and routed to human review only for verification, which significantly reduces turnaround time for the high volume of short, formulaic strings that make up most game UI content.
