Olark Live Chat updates olark.com

Fix

Olark Beta

Now when you press the ; (semi-colon) key on your keyboard and select one of your saved text shortcuts, we no longer enter the ; character in your composed message.

Accessibility

Accessibility Improvement Round-Up:

We shipped the following improvements in 4th Quarter, 2022:

• Updated ARIA labels on multiple elements of the chatbox for screenreader clarity
• Added a lang attribute to the chatbox HTML tag
• Updated the Powered by Olark element to read as a link and not a button and removed a stray tab index
• Added list markup to the chatbox send transcript and rate chat links, labeled the dialog containers, revised the modal heading levels, and updated the element in focus when the modal is closed, all for increased screenreader clarity

Additionally, we:

• Engaged our 3rd party auditor for a re-audit of our chatbox against WCAG 2.1 AA requirements. We expect to receive an updated Letter of Conformance before the end of the Quarter.
• Engaged our 3rd party auditor for an initial audit of our new agent interface against WCAG 2.1 AA requirements. Initial results have been received and work will begin in earnest in 1st Quarter, 2023, to catalog and resolve identified issues, with a goal of obtaining a Letter of Conformance.

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 to the chatbox for screenreader users in languages other than English.
• Each message in the chatbox being focusable creates unnecessary tab stops

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

New Feature!

We've made it even easier for accounts using the new Olark to access chat directly from their Olark dashboard.

Accounts with access to the newest version of Olark will now see two buttons in the upper left of their account dashboard.

The Launch Chat button will now take you to the new Olark (previously referred to as Olark Beta) at app.olark.com.

The Launch Classic button will take you to the Olark classic chat console at chat.olark.com.

Olark Beta

New Feature!

While you've always been able to transfer to groups using the !transfer #groupname command, we've now added a Transfer to Group feature in the Actions menu.

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.