When visiting the campus website this semester, you may notice a significant change other than Canvas. Now, when you type in www.uwplatt.edu, you will be taken to a redesigned site with the purpose of making it easier for new students to apply and look of information about the University of Wisconsin-Platteville 

The new university website was designed over the entire year of 2018 in order for prospective students to easily find information regarding costs, campus life, admission and the academic programs that campus has to offer. It also makes it easier to request information and visit and apply to the university because of three tabs on the right that follow the user as they navigate the pages.

This was a significant web redesign that students and faculty might not have understood at first, but when it came time to redesign the site, the designers  kept that in mind and found a way not to change the website for internal users while still making it easier for external users. 

 “We found that 80 percent of the traffic on the website was from internal traffic,” director of communications Paul Erickson said.  

A large portion of users were either students or staff. For those 80 percent, nothing has really changed other than the URL, which is now www.campus.uwplatt.edu. Erickson said that the goal for internal use was to maintain the same site for staff and students. He also noted the only other things students have to do in order to adapt to the change is update their bookmark/favorite for the campus site. 

Some of the students were confused on why the change happened when it did.

“Why in the middle of the academic year instead of over the summer?” civil engineering major Alex Severson said.

According to Paul Erickson, the reason for that was because now is the time that prospective students are applying for college and are about sign up for New Student Registration. The updated site will make it easier for parents and students to find information regarding parking, building locations and statistics about UW-Platteville. Erickson also mentioned that if something is missing or they find a frequently asked question, they could add it on to make the site more accessible to everyone.