If you're writing an article with figures and captions, don't worry about duplicating the text of the article in the figure caption. People often just skim the captions and a good one will suck people into reading the whole article.
Good caption: "From the surveillance window, click WARN to have the robot shout a final warning in Esperanto. Then click FIRE to fire the lasers."
Weak caption: "The surveillance window has a robot's-eye view, along with a yellow WARN button and a red FIRE button."
Oh, and don't just describe the figure in the caption.
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