Persistent visibility is scarce. Choose actions by visitor relevance, timing, consequence, evidence and the cost of displacing the page.
Quick answer
An action deserves persistent visibility when it serves a recurring visitor job, remains relevant across the pages and states where it appears, has a clear owner and outcome, and creates less friction than the content it displaces.
Teams rarely run out of website actions. They run out of clear places to put them. Contact, search, chat, feedback, offers, consent and campaign calls to action can all be useful, but usefulness in isolation is not enough to justify a permanent place on screen.
The Barra PLACE matrix helps teams make the trade-off together: Purpose, Location, Audience, Consequence and Evidence. It is a decision aid, not a benchmark, and it should be applied to Barra as critically as any other persistent interface.
Purpose: name the visitor job
Start with what the visitor is trying to do, not which team requested the placement.
A persistent search action can help on a large information site where people repeatedly need another route. A webinar promotion may be valuable only on a small set of related pages and for a limited period. Both can have business value, but they do not deserve the same reach.
Write the purpose as a visitor outcome. If the best available wording is merely 'increase engagement', the request is not yet specific enough to earn scarce screen space.
Location and audience: prove repeated relevance
An action should persist only where the same job remains useful for the same audience.
Review page type, journey stage, device and known visitor state. A high-intent pricing page may justify a visible demo route that would be premature on an early educational article.
Barra supports ordered modules and device visibility, so teams can choose a smaller action set rather than copying one global arrangement everywhere. The order itself is placement and should reflect priority.
- Name the pages where the action helps.
- Name the pages where it should be absent.
- Confirm an equivalent route remains when an action is hidden by device.
Consequence: measure the displacement cost
Every persistent action changes the page even when it does not cover content.
A docked bar uses vertical space. A floating action overlays part of the viewport. A large label can compete with the page's own primary action. The right comparison is not action versus no action; it is the action's value versus the attention and space it consumes.
Google advises against intrusive promotional dialogs that obstruct access to content. Several individually modest prompts can still create a combined interruption, so evaluate the complete edge state rather than approving one component at a time.
Evidence: define success and expiry
Persistent placement needs an owner, a measurable outcome and a decision date.
Record the intended progression, not only the nearest click. A contact action might be judged by qualified starts and completed enquiries; a feedback action by usable responses and the issues they help resolve.
Set an expiry or review date before launch. If evidence is weak, test a smaller audience, change the page route or return the action to ordinary content. Persistence is not a permanent entitlement.
Further reading
Sources
- Avoid intrusive interstitials and dialogs — Google Search Central
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.5.8: Target Size (Minimum) — W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
Frequently asked questions
How many persistent website actions should a page have?
There is no universal number. Keep the smallest set that serves distinct visitor jobs, remains operable on the narrowest supported viewport and does not compete with the page's primary route.
