Site Assistant (AI Chat Bot)
Try It Live (cotedesigns.co.uk)An accessible AI chat assistant, live on cotedesigns.co.uk, that answers from the site's own content, replies in the visitor's language and turns conversations into qualified leads.
Overview
Designed and built the CôTEDESIGNS Assistant, the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of this website. It runs on a single Cloudflare Worker that can serve many client sites, each set up with one config file. Every night it re-reads the site so its answers stay current, works out which service fits the visitor and links to the right page. When someone wants to get in touch, it opens a short contact form inside the chat, pre-filled with what they already said, and stores and emails the lead. It is clearly labelled as AI and built to WCAG 2.2 AA from the start.
Challenges
- Keeping answers accurate: the bot answers only from the site's own pages and a set of business facts, and is refreshed automatically every night.
- Making a chat widget fully accessible: keyboard operation, screen-reader announcements for new messages, visible focus, 4.5:1 contrast, 44px targets and reduced motion.
- Protecting the API key and controlling cost, with per-visitor and per-site message limits, origin checks, invisible spam protection and email alerts when something goes wrong.
Results & Impact
Live on cotedesigns.co.uk, answering visitors in English, Spanish, French and more.
Qualifies enquiries in the chat and hands them over through an in-chat contact form, so no lead is lost outside office hours.
Reusable for clients: a new site is added with one config file and one line of embed code.
Keyboard and screen-reader friendly, with the AI and privacy notice shown up front.