Arabic is not a translation layer
Most bilingual sites are an English site with the words replaced. The difference shows up in the places translation cannot reach.
Almost every organisation in the UAE says its systems are bilingual. Far fewer have systems an Arabic-speaking user would choose to use. The gap is rarely the translation itself — it is everything the translation cannot reach.
The design is finished before Arabic arrives
The usual sequence is: design in English, build in English, sign off in English, then send the strings to a translator. By that point the decisions that matter have already been made. Column order, icon direction, where the primary button sits, how a form reads when the label is longer than the field — all of it was settled for one language, and Arabic inherits the result.
Mirroring a layout at the end produces something that is technically right-to-left and still feels like a translation. Users notice, even when they cannot say what is wrong.
What actually breaks
A few things go wrong in the same way on almost every project.
Mixed direction. Arabic text containing a Latin product name, an IBAN or a phone number needs the numbers to stay left-to-right inside a right-to-left line. Get it wrong and an account number reads backwards — which is worse than a typo, because it looks plausible.
Directional icons. A back arrow must flip. A checkmark must not. Teams tend to mirror everything or nothing, and both are wrong.
Text length. Arabic headings often run shorter than English ones and body text often runs longer. A layout tuned to English line lengths looks sparse in one place and cramped in another.
Fonts. A typeface chosen for Latin characters rarely has an Arabic companion that sits at the same weight and rhythm. Pairing them is a design decision, not a fallback.
What doing it properly looks like
Design both languages at the same time, in the same file, at the same fidelity. Build with logical CSS properties — start and end rather than left and right — so direction is a property of the document rather than a second stylesheet. Decide per icon whether it is directional. Test with real content, including the long names and the mixed-direction strings, before sign-off rather than after.
None of this is expensive if it is done from the first screen. All of it is expensive if it is done at the end.
Why it matters more here
For a government or semi-government entity, the Arabic interface is not a secondary audience — it is often the primary one, and it is the version a regulator or a minister sees. An Arabic experience that feels like an afterthought says something about the organisation that no amount of English polish corrects.