localization-and-literacy-uxlisted

# Localization and literacy UX ## The constraint The interface will be read in a language whose words are longer than English's, by someone who may be literate in a different language than the one on screen, on a small display, in sunlight, on a phone that was set up by a relative. Some of them are using a smartphone for the first time, and have not learned that a magnifying glass means search or that three horizontal lines mean menu. None of this is an accessibility afterthought. It is the mainline case, and almost every failure it produces is a layout or a data-formatting bug that could have been caught by a machine. ## Hard rules | ID | Rule | Severity | |---|---|---| | LOC-001 | Text containers stretch; never fix the height or width of a box holding a string. | critical | | LOC-002 | Build sentences with a message formatter, never string concatenation. | critical | | LOC-003 | Format numbers, dates, currency, and names with locale data, never by hand. | warning | | LOC-004 | Run pseudo-localization in CI at the expansion factor of your longest language. | warning | | LOC-005 | Never let an icon carry meaning on its own. | warning | | LOC-006 | Use logical layout properties so right-to-left works without a second layout. | warning | | LOC-007 | Every critical flow is completable without reading a paragraph. | warning | | LOC-008 | Language is an explicit, persisted user choice, not an inference. | warning | | LOC-009 | Do not hardcode the shape of names, addresses, or