Realistic Data in Figma for International Design Systems — FR, EN, DE, ES, JP
By the Realistic Data Generator team · June 2026
If you have ever handed a design mockup to an engineer and heard “that text overflows in German” or “the Japanese version looks completely different,” you already know the problem. Placeholder data that does not reflect the real linguistic and cultural properties of your target markets makes your mockups misleading — and your hand-offs more expensive.
This article explains why realistic, locale-accurate data matters in Figma design systems, what problems it prevents, and how to use it effectively when designing for international audiences.
The hidden cost of “Lorem ipsum”
Section titled “The hidden cost of “Lorem ipsum””Lorem ipsum has been the designer’s placeholder of choice for decades. It is neutral, it fills space, and it draws no attention to itself. But that neutrality is precisely the problem when you are designing for multiple locales.
Consider a simple user profile card. With Lorem ipsum or English placeholder text, a card layout might look perfectly balanced. But ship that same layout to your German localization team and suddenly the full name field overflows, the address block wraps unexpectedly, and the phone number column is too narrow by 30%.
This is not a hypothetical. It is the standard outcome of designing with locale-neutral placeholders and discovering locale-specific problems in engineering — or worse, in production.
What “realistic” actually means
Section titled “What “realistic” actually means”Realistic data is not just about text length. It covers:
- Character sets — Latin, Cyrillic, CJK, right-to-left scripts each have different rendering requirements.
- Name conventions — Japanese names in kanji are 2–5 characters; some German names span 20+ characters. French names can include hyphens; Spanish names traditionally include two family names.
- Address formats — The order of street number, street name, postal code, and city varies by country. French addresses go “number street city postal”, German addresses go “street number postal city”, Japanese addresses go “postal prefecture ward street”.
- Phone formats — French mobiles are always 10 digits starting with 06 or 07. US numbers follow the NXX-NXX-XXXX pattern. Japanese mobiles are 090-XXXX-XXXX.
- Administrative identifiers — A SIRET is 14 digits, a DNI is 8 digits + a letter, an SSN uses a dash-separated XXX-XX-XXXX format.
None of this is captured by Lorem ipsum, and very little of it is captured by English-only placeholder text.
How realistic data exposes real layout problems
Section titled “How realistic data exposes real layout problems”German compound words
Section titled “German compound words”German is famous for compound nouns — words formed by concatenating multiple words without spaces. A common example in UI contexts: Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaft (legal expenses insurance company). This single word is longer than many English sentences.
If your input field, label, or card width is sized for English text, it will break for German. Testing with realistic German names and addresses reveals these issues at design time, when they are cheap to fix.
Example — contact card, same layout, two locales:
| Field | English (EN) | German (DE) |
|---|---|---|
| Full Name | James Williams | Hans-Friedrich Schwarzenberger |
| Company | Acme Corp | Bundesversicherungsanstalt für Angestellte |
| Address | 42 Main St, Seattle | Bundesallee 42, 10717 Berlin |
The German version immediately reveals that the company field needs more horizontal space, and the name field may need truncation logic.
Japanese text length asymmetry
Section titled “Japanese text length asymmetry”Japanese presents the opposite challenge. Kanji packs a lot of meaning into few characters. A full name like 田中 太郎 (Tanaka Taro) is only 5 characters — far shorter than the Western equivalent.
This means:
- Name fields sized for Western names will look disproportionately empty in Japanese UIs.
- Typographic rhythm built around Latin character grids breaks with CJK characters.
- Line heights appropriate for Latin descenders may need adjustment for CJK.
Testing your layout with realistic Japanese names and addresses shows you which components need adaptive sizing.
French addresses and accented characters
Section titled “French addresses and accented characters”French addresses use accented characters (é, è, ê, à, ù, ç) throughout. Fonts that do not support the full Latin Extended character set will render boxes or fallback glyphs. Testing with realistic French addresses (12 Rue de l'Église, 69001 Lyon) catches font coverage issues early.
Additionally, French street names are often longer than English equivalents because they include the full type prefix (Rue, Avenue, Boulevard, Impasse, Allée) as part of the official name. An address field sized for English content may wrap unexpectedly with French content.
A practical tutorial
Section titled “A practical tutorial”Here is how to use Realistic Data Generator to test your Figma design system across all five locales in under 10 minutes.
1. Prepare your design
Section titled “1. Prepare your design”Create a base component (e.g., a user profile card) with text layers named clearly:
full-namephoneemailaddressadmin-id
2. Set up locale variants
Section titled “2. Set up locale variants”Duplicate the component four times — one copy per additional locale. Group each copy in a frame named after the locale: profile-en, profile-fr, profile-de, profile-es, profile-jp.
3. Fill each locale
Section titled “3. Fill each locale”Open Realistic Data Generator, select the profile-fr frame, set locale to 🇫🇷 FR, enable Coherent Person, and click each category. Repeat for each locale frame.
4. Review side by side
Section titled “4. Review side by side”With all five locale variants on the canvas, you can immediately see:
- Where text overflows or feels too sparse
- Where fonts lack character support
- Where component widths need adjustment
This review catches the majority of internationalization issues before a single line of production code is written.
Side-by-side comparison: the same UI in 5 locales
Section titled “Side-by-side comparison: the same UI in 5 locales”| Field | 🇫🇷 FR | 🇺🇸 EN | 🇩🇪 DE | 🇪🇸 ES | 🇯🇵 JP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Marie Dupont | James Williams | Hans Müller | Carlos García | 田中 太郎 |
| Phone | 06 12 34 56 78 | (512) 555-0147 | +49 30 12345678 | +34 612 345 678 | 090-1234-5678 |
| Address | 12 Rue de la Paix, 75001 Paris | 42 Oak Street, Austin TX 78701 | Hauptstraße 23, 10115 Berlin | Calle Mayor 15, 28013 Madrid | 〒100-0001 東京都千代田区1丁目 |
| Admin ID | 35260082300056 (SIRET) | 042-68-4321 (SSN) | 21/815/08150 (Steuer.) | 12345678Z (DNI) | 123456789012 (MyNumber) |
Looking at this table in your Figma canvas immediately highlights which fields need the most flexibility.
Conclusion
Section titled “Conclusion”Designing for international audiences starts with the right data. Locale-accurate placeholder data does not make your final design — it makes your design review honest. It surfaces layout problems, font coverage gaps, and field-sizing assumptions before they become engineering debt.
Realistic Data Generator provides that accuracy for five locales — French, English, German, Spanish, and Japanese — directly inside Figma, with no external tools, no data leaving your environment, and no setup beyond a one-click install.
Install the plugin from Figma Community →
Disclaimer: All data generated by the plugin is fictional. Admin IDs (SIRET, SSN, DNI, Steuernummer, MyNumber) must not be used outside of design mockups.