Chat widget
Also called Chat bubble, Chat launcher
A chat widget is the small interface embedded on a website, usually a round button in a bottom corner, that opens a chat window when clicked. It connects visitors to a chatbot, live agents or both, and is normally added to a site with a short JavaScript snippet or a platform plugin.
Example
A purple bubble in the bottom-right corner of a site opens a window with a greeting, suggested questions and a text box.
Why it matters for a website chatbot
The widget is what visitors actually see, so its speed, placement and accessibility matter as much as the answers. ChatBento's widget loads asynchronously with one script tag, runs in a shadow DOM, and lets you set its color, name, greeting and corner.
See it in practice: Agency client sites
Related terms
- Script tagA script tag is the HTML <script> element, which loads or runs JavaScript on a web page. Third-party tools such as analytics, chat widgets and forms are commonly installed by pasting a one-line script tag into a site's code, often with async or defer attributes so it doesn't block the page from loading.
- Shadow DOMShadow DOM is a web standard that lets a component attach its own hidden, encapsulated tree of HTML elements to a page. Styles inside a shadow root don't leak out, and the page's styles don't leak in, so embedded components like widgets look the same on every site they're added to.
- Greeting messageA greeting message is the first message a chatbot shows when a visitor opens the chat window, before they type anything. It tells visitors what the chatbot can help with and invites a first question. Specific, useful greetings get more replies than a generic "How can I help?".
- Core Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to measure real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading speed), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Good scores are an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, an INP of 200 milliseconds or less and a CLS of 0.1 or less.