Text direction also affects the look of graphics and icons. The illustration below shows a user interface with 'File' on the right, 'Help' on the left, and right-aligned menus cascading to the left. We have only touched on a small number of potential issues relating to non-Latin writing systems, but it is enough to demonstrate that these are issues which can fundamentally impact the early design decisions for the product. The fact that users are using a different alphabet has implications for the way the product is designed. If the translation is in Russian, Russian keys should be acceptable as short-cuts.
Thought has to be given to alphabetic lists also.
Reference manuals whose contents are sorted alphabetically will need to be completely rearranged in another language. The following illustrates a way of jumping quickly to the point in the index in order to look up some on-line help. It is not necessary to avoid such a mechanism when internationalising your product, but developers really should give some thought to how they can speed up the localisation process. For example, they can make it easy for the localisation vendor to change the bitmaps and add extra letters, and help them reassign the links between letters and the appropriate point in the index by making all the appropriate code and information accessible.