When should action captions be written?

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Action captions guide how a graphic should communicate the action or outcome, so they are best written before you start designing the visual. When you write the caption first, you’re defining exactly what the viewer should understand the image is showing, which then steers the choice of imagery, sequence, and emphasis. This upfront direction helps you storyboard the concept and ensures the graphic and caption work together to convey a clear action or result from the outset. If you wait until after you’ve finalized the graphic, you risk misalignment between what the image shows and what the caption says, which can mean costly revisions. Relying on final edits to resolve clarity is not ideal because the core message should be established early. This isn’t optional; having the caption defined early helps ensure the communication is precise and efficient.