Internationalizing Shuttlers for Multi-Language Support

Shuttlers is a scheduled mass-transit solution in Nigeria that helps individuals and businesses commute to and from work reliably, while prioritizing safety and convenience. As part of its growth strategy, Shuttlers set out to expand operations beyond Nigeria into new markets. Problem

To support expansion into countries such as Ivory Coast and Egypt, the existing platform needed to support additional languages and cultural contexts. The product was built primarily for English-speaking users and lacked the UX foundations required for internationalization—posing a major barrier to global scale.

A thoughtfully internationalized product experience that supports French and Arabic, accounting for linguistic structure, readability, and layout orientation. The challenge extended beyond translation and required careful UX decisions to ensure usability across languages.

This project marked my first experience internationalizing a product that was originally designed exclusively in English. I invested time in learning best practices for localization and internationalization by studying resources across Medium, Substack, and industry-led talks—particularly around RTL (right-to-left) design systems.

A major focus was understanding how language structure directly impacts layout, hierarchy, and readability.

French translations tend to be longer than English equivalents

Font sizes were reduced by 2–4px to prevent excessive line wrapping

Layouts were adjusted to preserve visual balance and scannability

Arabic required a full RTL layout inversion

Font size remained consistent, but font weight was increased by one level to improve readability

Typography considerations included Arabic-friendly fonts such as Ruqaa and Noto Sans; however, the existing brand font (Heebo) proved suitable and was retained

These decisions ensured the Arabic experience felt intentional rather than mirrored or improvised.

All designs were built using existing Shuttlers components and brand guidelines. This ensured visual consistency across markets while allowing the platform to scale efficiently without introducing design fragmentation.

The French internationalization played a key role in Shuttlers’ successful launch in Ivory Coast, driving strong adoption shortly after release. The expansion validated the internationalization strategy and the cross-team effort invested in delivering a scalable, multi-language product—one that is actively in use today.