This is an overview of the principles of good research practice that all EHA projects adhere to, in order to determine the best technology hardware being sold in the region every year.
Historical Context
The European Hardware Association’s member sites have published hundreds of thousands of expert articles for many years. During that time, various localised research has taken place. When the EHA was formed in 2014, it was decided to combine our resources to allow for large-scale, coherent research – utilising our aggregated audience of more than 20 million technology enthusiasts, early adopters and influencers. We also launched the EHA Annual Editorial Awards, the European Hardware Awards.
Psychology
With a huge team of experienced editors, the EHA is uniquely positioned to determine the best hardware products on sale in Europe during the present year. The best options in each category are recognised as finalists, when the nominations are made public in April. The overall ‘Best in Category’ is announced at a special ceremony that takes place on the eve of Computex.
Methodology
At the opening General Meeting of the European Hardware Association at the start of each year, a decision is made about the most important product categories. That list is agreed and then sent to over 100 experienced editors who work for the EHA publications.
The designated editors from all publications nominate five products per category. Each publication can also specify a ‘wildcard’, which is guaranteed to make it to the main vote. Nominations are all made and disseminated at the same time, so no publication is aware of its neighbour’s choices in advance.
All products nominated by the representatives of at least two of the EHA websites (combined with all the products that were nominated as wildcards), make it to the master list of final nominations.
The products on the final list are called the European Hardware Awards Finalists. A copy of this final voting form is then sent to each EHA member publication and final voting begins (see below for details).
Voting
The EHA editors then cast their votes in each category. Sites are not obliged to vote in all categories. For example, they may choose to avoid a category in which they have not focused during the previous 12 months.
To vote in a category, 10 points have to be distributed over the nominated products. No product can score more than 4 points. This system promotes products which have a broader appeal to the EHA editors, by favouring products which are available across more countries. After all votes are cast, the product with the highest total amount of point in each category wins.
Winning an EHA award means that a product has been recognised as the ‘Best of the Best’ by more than 100 experienced editors from across Europe.
Tie-Breaker
Although very unusual, it is possible to have a tie in a specific category. In that case, the Steering Committee will re-send the tied options to each publication and ask them to choose between the options. Over the past 5 years, we have never had a tied situation that wasn’t settled at this stage.
Winners
The winners of the EHA Annual Editorial Awards are announced at a special industry ceremony on the evening before Computex opens its doors.