Hi guys,

I'm not here as regularly as I used to be but thought I'd comment on the new site.

I like the new look, but have to check it out on a Mac before I can say more. There is still much to get used to, but the speed is definitely an issue for me. It takes quite a while for the site to open and when you click somewhere you have to wait a bit longer than I prefer. This seems to be a trend with some sites. Is it because of the Twitter link-in perhaps? 

Looks like a couple of things are still being worked on, so I guess it's too early to say more. However, I do miss the easy access to the reviews, for example. In the past you were able to click on a producer and get all of their reviews, now it looks to me as if the reviews are only chronologically ordered. Or am I missing something? Like I said, I still need to get used to the site, which is also a bit of a downside for me. The old site was a lot more user-friendly.

Sorry for all the negative points. I know a lot of effort has gone into making 70%.com fresher and more accessible. At the moment I'd say fresh – yes, but a bit clunkier.

Alex

Hi Martin,

Thanks! Yes, I've been AWOL for a while now ;-) But I'm back and keeping up with the chocolate world (this includes working at a chocolate shop now).

And I've just noticed that the speed of the site has certainly picked up! I didn't mean to be a nag.

Another thing I noticed is that the site works better on my Mac at home. My PC here at work (where I shouldn't be logging in to 70% anyhow ;-) doesn't display the drop-down menus on the homepage correctly. They drop behind the photos and therefore can't be clicked or read.

I look forward to the new review section. Every now and then I like to check an old review on a bar by Valrhona, for example. BTW, have you noticed that the page numbers on the blog page and the review page don't work? I've clicked on page numbers to move on, but nothing happens.

Did you until recently tie-in blogs by other bloggers? That was interesting! Nice to see what is going on elsewhere. But there is so much going on! All these new chocolates from the US and whatnot. I'm having trouble keeping up. Thank goodness I've found ways to get my hands on these exciting new bars…

All the best to you and Happy New Year too!

Alex

Hi Alex,

Good to see you here. Are you finding the site ok now? There were a few problems with our ISP and server load around that time, but on the whole things are working fairly well now, as far as I can see.

We are waiting for the ISP to move us to a different server, which should help reliability. If there are delays on our side, it's probably because of certain plugins running, so it would help to isolate which areas of the site are slow and which are running normally. If you spot anything, can you report it here?

We're working on a new site design for the autumn, so this may help with the both speed and usability.

cheers,

Martin