WCAG 3.2.6 — Consistent Help

What this requires

When help mechanisms — contact details, contact forms, fully automated contact systems (chatbots), self-help mechanisms, or a human-contact mechanism — are repeated on multiple pages within a set of pages, they occur in the same relative order each time, unless a change is initiated by the user.

How AI coding tools fail this

When asked to "add a chat widget" or "put a help link in the header", AI tools place the help mechanism on the requested page but not on others, or place it in a different position on each page. The user who learned that "help is in the bottom-right corner" finds it on the home page and not on the docs page.

The second pattern: chat widgets that appear or disappear based on business hours, with no consistent placeholder. The user who learned the chat exists finds the widget gone outside business hours.

The third: contact links scattered — in the header on the home page, in the footer on docs pages, in a sidebar on pricing. Same function, inconsistent location.

Passing examples

Render the help mechanism from a shared layout, in the same position on every page:

// app/layout.tsx
export default function RootLayout({ children }) {
  return (
    <html>
      <body>
        {children}
        <ChatWidget />
        <footer>
          <Link href="/contact">Contact us</Link>
        </footer>
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}

If chat is unavailable, keep a placeholder in the same place with alternative contact info:

<ChatWidget
  availability="business-hours"
  fallback={<Link href="/contact">Contact us</Link>}
/>

Edge cases

"Set of pages" means within the same site. The criterion doesn't require the same placement across different sites.
Process pages (checkout, sign-up) may show different help — the funnel may need help specific to the step.
User-initiated dismissal is exempt. If the user closes the chat widget on one page, the widget being closed on the next is honouring their choice.
Mobile vs desktop can have different layouts; the consistency applies within each layout.
Same accessible name and same icon as well — see 3.2.4.

How Jeikin handles this

The scanner records help-mechanism placement (chat widget, contact link, help link) across crawled pages and flags inconsistencies. The dashboard records each finding and tracks resolution. Process-page exceptions are captured per route.

References

W3C — Understanding 3.2.6 Consistent Help (opens in new tab)