Olark Live Chat updates olark.com

Accessibility

Accessibility Improvement Round-Up:

We shipped the following improvements in 2nd Quarter, 2022:

• Increased the contrast on our form field focus indicators to meeting contrast requirements.
• Updated the aria-label on the “close chatbox” button to make it clear that the button closes the chatbox.
• Improved the focus on “send transcript” and “give feedback” selections so that screen readers will parse them as the active modal.
• Fixed an issue that was blocking screen readers from reading the response selection buttons sent by our Copilot bots in the chatbox.
• Made an improvement that allows screen readers to read the “question 1 of 5” completion tracker when giving agent feedback in the chatbox.
• Fixed a bug that was hampering use of the chatbox by screen magnification users
• Added support for auto completion of fields in the chatbox pre-chat and offline forms

We shipped the following improvements in 3rd Quarter, 2022:

• Began testing and shipping improvements to our Beta agent app in earnest. Improvements shipped so far include contrast improvements, support for diverse keyboard layouts, and adding infrastructure to better support screen reader use.
• Made a change to the offline chatbox so that the header cannot hide the form.

The following issues are currently in our work queue - look for fixes to be shipped soon:

• The chatbox header changes context when an agent is assigned to a chat. This can be disorienting to screen reader users.
• Adding support for screenreader users in languages other than English.
• Removing the "region" role when the chatbox is intentionally hidden on the webpage.

What's this all about?

As part of our Global Accessibility Awareness Day commitments this year we resolved to publish a quarterly round-up of accessibility improvements we've made, and improvements we know are still outstanding.

Want to join in? You can read more about GAAD here.

Olark Beta

Fix

Accessibility

To better support various keyboard layouts, we've changed the way keystrokes open the Actions menu.

The menu should now only open when the / or ; characters are input, regardless of the keys pressed on your physical keyboard. This won't require you to make any changes but should keep the menu from expanding unintentionally.

Olark Beta

Improvement

We've moved the Copy IP Address to Clipboard feature (used for blocking trolls and other troublesome chatters) to the new Actions menu.

Olark Beta

Improvement

We've released a batch of updates for our Pro Beta.

We have a new actions menu as a single place for all your most-used actions: transfer, shortcuts, end conversation and more to come.

One change you'll notice straight way is that we've moved the status switcher to the top-left of your screen with more vibrant colors to more easily see your current status.

Across the app we've made some visual changes including avatars for each contact for easier scanning; relative timestamps to help understand a contact's conversation history; and updated styles to make each message easier to read

Watch this two minute video to see the changes in action

Fix

We've fixed some long running cobrowsing issues, including sessions showing the visitor as "offline" when the session started.

To initiate a cobrowsing session in Olark Classic (chat.olark.com) click the "Launch Cobrowsing" button in the right sidebar, as usual.

You'll receive a notification with a link to the cobrowsing session. Click the link to open the cobrowsing session in a new tab.

And that's it! Full control, scroll and point, and highlight features have also been restored.

Olark Beta

New Feature!

We've added some new filters and functionality to the Beta agent experience!

• My Inbox is where your active conversations will live just as they do now.
• Team Inbox will show you all live conversations your teammates (that are using Beta) are currently engaged in - including the conversation contents.
• Recent Contacts will show you all recent contacts/conversations - similar to the transcripts page of your Olark dashboard. (More updates to this section coming soon.)
• Website Contacts shows you live visitors on your website, much the way the visitor list in Olark Classic does.

Improvement

CoPilot Chatbots

Several improvements to our reporting of CoPilot chatbot conversations were released today.

• Conversations between visitors and bots will now appear as "Conversation with CoPilot" in your dashboard and transcripts

• Conversations with only Copilot bot messages (if the visitor doesn't respond to the bot) are labeled "CoPilot Message" and will have the missed chat icon in the upper left on the transcripts page

• Conversations that involve both a bot and an agent will appear as normal conversations in your transcripts and dashboard

• If CoPilot tries to transfer a chat to a live agent but the agent doesn't respond, the conversation will be marked as a missed chat and agents may be forced offline to avoid further missed conversations

• Agent response time now reflects the time between when the bot transfers the conversation to the agent and the agent's first response, rather than first visitor message to first agent message.

Olark Beta

Fix

Fixed an issue with the unread message counter not clearing after messages were seen.

Olark Beta

Fix

We released a fix for an issue that was causing conversations to sometimes not appear in the beta console.

Beta users should refresh their browser right away.

Olark Beta

New Feature!

We've added a handy little visual notification to indicate new messages since you last interacted with a particular conversation.