New UF home page form gets information to requesters faster

December 6, 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Each year the University of Florida’s home page hosts nearly 5 million unique visitors. Frequently those visitors utilize the home page “Contact Webmaster” link for all sorts of questions, ranging from admission application deadlines and ordering transcripts to reporting a broken Web link.

With the advent of its new online form, UFIT’s Web Services group can now get a majority of those questions to the department that handles the information much faster than before.

“The site analytics recorded visits from over 200 countries last year,” said Kim Standifer, UF’s Web Services Manager. “The university’s home page is truly the online ‘front door’ point of entry for people around the country and around the world. We enhanced our contact page to better serve UF’s visitors and the variety of questions they submit.”

Instead of all questions going to the central “Contact the Webmaster” email, questions can now be submitted directly to the university areas receiving the most questions. For example, questions about international admissions requirements go directly to the Office of Admission, instead of into the extended Web Services queue of emailed questions. Questions related to general technical assistance, such as GatorLink passwords or Internet access, go directly to the UF Computing Help Desk. The goal for the redesigned form is to expedite answers to questions from visitors on a wide range of topics.

“There were more than 29 million page views of UF websites last fiscal year,” Standifer said. “That creates an opportunity for visitors to think of a lot of questions. The enhanced contact form gives us the opportunity to better assist UF’s virtual visitors.”