Because pseudo-localization can be performed programmatically, it is essentially a free form of pseudo-translation.

Translation using human translators can be a costly process. Pseudo-localization is a cost effective alternative to traditional translation when one is only trying to expose issues with internationalization (e.g. hard-coded text) or localization (e.g. layout issues).

Because pseudo-localization can be performed programmatically, results can be available immediately for review.

Translation using human translators can be slow and is certainly not instantaneous. Pseudo-localization can be a virtually instantaneous process, allowing designers, developers, testers, and others to discover and address problems earlier in the development cycle, without having to be slowed down by a translation process that could take days or even weeks.

Because pseudo-localized text is still readable as English, pseudo-localization makes it easier to test an application to discover i18n and L10n issues than if the text were truly translated to another language.

Pseudo-localized text is intended to resemble the source English text from which it is derived, specifically so that designers, developers, testers, and others can still navigate the application in the pseudo-localized state.

Because pseudo-localized text is derived purely from the source English text, any expansion process that is applied to simulate the effects of translation to other languages is approximate and not too reliable.

Expansion is determined as a percentage of the length of the source English text, but the actual expansion that will occur when translating to a specific language can vary substantially depending on the actual text being translated. Even with languages where translated text is typically longer, there can be individual cases where an English word or even sentence could be no longer when translated, or even shorter in some cases.

Therefore, the expansion process in pseudo-localization could produce false positives of issues that aren't real issues in practice. This may lead one to "fix" layout issues that don't exist in practice. In general, the more languages that an application will be translated to, the more useful the findings from pseudo-localization will be, since the variety of languages will have an aggregating effect and result in the expansion being more likely to be indicative of results for some language out of the set.

As a technique, pseudo-localization is built around the assumption that there is English text that can be used as the source for generating pseudo-localized text.

In particular, the two processes of accenting and expansion are largely predicated on the source text being English. At the very least, accenting anticipates that the source language use the Latin alphabet rather than a non-Latin script, so that alternate versions of the characters with different accents can be substituted. Expansion, on the other hand, is most valuable when the language to be used as the source for pseudo-localization is the most brief, since this will increase the number of languages that can be simulated by the expanion process (pseudo-localization can't simulate contraction, after all).

Put together, this leads to English being the most suitable language to use as the primary language from which pseudo-localized text is generated.

While pseudo-localization can simulate the expansion of text from translation by adding extra, easily ignorable characters without interfering with readability, there is no way to remove characters to simulate contraction without harming readability.

In contrast to languages like German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., where translating from English produces text that is larger, some Asian languages that use logographic writing systems can be somewhat more compact than the equivalent English. If you want to get some sense of how much vacant space there might be in the UI when an application is translated from English to one of these more compact languages, pseudo-localization won't be coming to your rescue.

Accenting is enabled by default in the Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize method.

EXAMPLE

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.');

OUTPUT

[Ýöûŕ_ åççöûñţ__ šéţţîñĝš___ ĥåṽé_ ƀééñ_ šåṽéð__.]

What you will notice from the output in the above example is that the pseudo-localized text is still readable - all the ASCII alphabetical characters have been replaced with accented Unicode variants that are analagous to the originals.

Accenting can be disabled by specifying the value false for the accent property in the options object, as shown in the example below...

EXAMPLE

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.',{accent:false});

OUTPUT

[Your_ account__ settings___ have_ been_ saved__.]

Expansion is performed according to the following steps...

In order to determine how many expansion characters should be added to the source string, an expansion factor is applied to the total number of word characters in the source string.

The expansion factor is specified as a floating point number, representing the ratio of word characters in the pseudo-localized string to word characters in the source string. So, for example, an expansion factor of 2 means that the pseudo-localized string will have twice as many word characters as the source string, meaning that the length of every word will be doubled, meaning that the total length of all the words will be increased by 100% (different ways of saying the same thing, really).

EXPANSION OF 2

[Ýöûŕ____ åççöûñţ_______ šéţţîñĝš________ ĥåṽé____ ƀééñ____ šåṽéð_____.]

Similarly, an expansion factor of 1.3 means that there will be 30% more word characters in the pseudo-localized string than the source string.

EXPANSION OF 1.3

[Ýöûŕ_ åççöûñţ__ šéţţîñĝš___ ĥåṽé_ ƀééñ_ šåṽéð__.]

When pseudo-localizing a source string, words from the source string are expanded by appending zero or more of a specific expansion character.

While the Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize method uses a default expansion character, a custom expansion character can also be specified explicitly.

Without specifying explicit values for expansion factor and expansion character. the Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize method uses default expansion factor and default expansion character values.

1.1.2.2.4.1. Default Expansion Factor

1.1.2.2.4.2. Default Expansion Character

Custom expansion factor and custom expansion character values can be specified explicitly to achieve custom expansion.

1.1.2.2.5.1. Custom Expansion Factor

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.',{expansion:2});

[Ýöûŕ____ åççöûñţ_______ šéţţîñĝš________ ĥåṽé____ ƀééñ____ šåṽéð_____.]

1.1.2.2.5.2. Custom Expansion Character

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.',{expansionChar:'~'});

[Ýöûŕ~ åççöûñţ~~ šéţţîñĝš~~~ ĥåṽé~ ƀééñ~ šåṽéð~~.]

By default, the Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize method wraps all pseudo-localized text in square brackets.

EXAMPLE

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.');

OUTPUT

[Ýöûŕ_ åççöûñţ__ šéţţîñĝš___ ĥåṽé_ ƀééñ_ šåṽéð__.]

When the square brackets used as the default wrapper is not suitable, the Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize method allows a custom wrapper to be specified using the wrapper property in the options object.

EXAMPLE

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.',{wrapper:'[-  -]'});

RESULT

[- Ýöûŕ_ åççöûñţ__ šéţţîñĝš___ ĥåṽé_ ƀééñ_ šåṽéð__. -]

When applying a custom wrapper, the wrapper string is split into two halves, the first of which is used as a prefix, and the second of which is used as a suffix.

The wrapping process can be effectively disabled by specifying the value '' (empty string) for the wrapper property in the options object, as shown in the example below...

EXAMPLE

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('Your account settings have been saved.',{wrapper:''});

OUTPUT

Ýöûŕ_ åççöûñţ__ šéţţîñĝš___ ĥåṽé_ ƀééñ_ šåṽéð__.

A boolean, specifying whether ot not accenting of characters should be applied.

A number, specifying an expansion factor to be used when producing a pseudo-localized string from the source string.

For more details on the process of expansion, consult the section How Expansion is Performed.

A string, specifying a character that should be used for the expansion of words in the source string.

A regular expression, specifying a match expression that should be used to split a source string into words and non-words.

2.2.2.1.4.1. Default Word Splitter

2.2.2.1.4.2. Custom Word Splitter

var
  _wordSplitterRegExpComposition = Uize.Util.RegExpComposition ({
    punctuation:/[\?!\.;,&=\-\(\)\[\]"]+/,
    number:/\d+(?:\.\d+)?/,
    whitespace:/\s+/,
    htmlTag:/<(?:.|[\r\n\f])+?>/,
    wordSplitter:/({htmlTag}|{whitespace}|{punctuation}|{number})/
  }),
  _wordSplitterRegExp = _wordSplitterRegExpComposition.get ('wordSplitter'),
  _pseudoLocalized = Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize (
    '<div class="title">Account Settings</div>\n' +
    '<div class="settingsLinks">\n' +
    '  <div id="changePassword" class="settingsLink">Change Password</div>\n' +
    '  <div id="changeEmail" class="settingsLink">Change Email Address</div>\n' +
    '  <div id="billingInfo" class="settingsLink">Update Billing Info</div>\n' +
    '  <div id="shippingAddress" class="settingsLink">Shipping Address</div>\n' +
    '</div>\n',
    {
      wordSplitter:_wordSplitterRegExp,
      wrapper:''
    }
  )
;

<div class="title">Åççöûñţ__ Šéţţîñĝš___</div>
<div class="settingsLinks">
  <div id="changePassword" class="settingsLink">Çĥåñĝé_ Þåššŵöŕð___</div>
  <div id="changeEmail" class="settingsLink">Çĥåñĝé__ Éɱåîļ_ Åððŕéšš__</div>
  <div id="billingInfo" class="settingsLink">Ûþðåţé__ Ɓîļļîñĝ__ Îñƒö_</div>
  <div id="shippingAddress" class="settingsLink">Šĥîþþîñĝ___ Åððŕéšš__</div>
</div>

A string, specifying the characters that should be used to wrap the source string when performing pseudo-localization on it.

The wrapper string is split down the middle to form two parts: the opener characters (used as the prefix) and the closer characters (used as the suffix).

2.2.2.1.5.1. A Two Character Wrapper

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize (
  'This pseudo-localization thing is pretty cool!',
  {wrapper:'<>'}
);

<Ţĥîš_ þšéûðö-ļöçåļîžåţîöñ______ ţĥîñĝ_ îš_ þŕéţţý__ çööļ_!>

2.2.2.1.5.2. Wrappers With More Than Teo Characters

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize (
  'This pseudo-localization thing is pretty cool!',
  {wrapper:'[-  -]'}
);

[- Ţĥîš_ þšéûðö-ļöçåļîžåţîöñ______ ţĥîñĝ_ îš_ þŕéţţý__ çööļ_! -]

2.2.2.1.5.3. An Odd Length Wrapper

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize (
  'This pseudo-localization thing is pretty cool!',
  {wrapper:'<#>'}
);

<#Ţĥîš_ þšéûðö-ļöçåļîžåţîöñ______ ţĥîñĝ_ îš_ þŕéţţý__ çööļ_!>

2.2.2.1.5.4. An Empty Wrapper

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize (
  'This pseudo-localization thing is pretty cool!',
  {wrapper:''}
);

Ţĥîš_ þšéûðö-ļöçåļîžåţîöñ______ ţĥîñĝ_ îš_ þŕéţţý__ çööļ_!

2.2.2.1.5.5. The Default Wrapper

Uize.Loc.Pseudo.pseudoLocalize ('This pseudo-localization thing is pretty cool!');

[Ţĥîš_ þšéûðö-ļöçåļîžåţîöñ______ ţĥîñĝ_ îš_ þŕéţţý__ çööļ_!]