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Re: placement for legend associated with a table

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom.com
Date: Sep 29, 2015 9:46AM

Our firm developed an overall guideline that I think would help in your case, Angela.

Combining our associates' immense experience in all realms of publishing (academic, government, STEM, commercial periodicals, advertising/PR), we put together our best theories of communication. We believe that when possible, it's best to put "guidance" about the item in front (or before) it.

Our template for tables, figures, and other complex data:

1) Figure/Table Number: Figure/Table Title.
2) Prefatory information (includes keys like yours, info that WCAG defines as a summary, and traditional info like "In thousands of dollars, 2010–2015." It can be as long or short as you need it to be.)
3) The Figure/Table itself.

We do not like WCAG summaries because they are extremely time-consuming to create in PDFs and in the common authoring programs (Word, PowerPoint, and InDesign). We're aiming to make accessible documents as easy as possible to produce by authors, designers, and developers; therefore, anything that can't be done directly in Word, PowerPoint, and InDesign is avoided. I don't want my staff spending any more time than necessary in Acrobat fixing broken, inaccessible PDFs.

Human behavior research has shown that preparing the reader for what they are about to read always produces better comprehension and understanding. And this theory helps all readers, not just those using AT.

Hope this helps,
—Bevi Chagnon