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With dozens of different categories to vote in and at least five questions in each category, it's a demanding process.

We first asked which items people had bought for home use in the past two years, so if they had only bought a printer, digital camera and notebook then those were the only categories they had to fill in.

And if they'd bought a second printer, camera or notebook, they could give us feedback on those as well. As an example, consider the process for digital cameras bought for home use. First, we ask which brand of camera you bought. Then, on a scale from very satisfied to very dissatisfied, we ask you to rate the image quality, reliability and value for money of the camera.

Then, arguably the most important question of all, we ask "would you buy the same brand of camera again?". We convert these answers into numeric values. To be precise, very satisfied was ten points, satisfied eight points, neither satisfied or dissatisfied five points, dissatisfied two points, and very dissatisfied was zero points (in the case of buying again, Yes equals ten points, No equals zero points).

Dividing by the total number of "votes" we received for each company, we then obtained an average figure out of ten. We use this figure in the Top Five listings, although we convert it into a percentage. These figures are also the basis of the simple star ratings we provide to give an at-a-glance guide to customer service, reliability and satisfaction. Note that satisfaction is derived from the "buy again" answers.

EDITORIAL AWARDS

To decide the nominations for the Real World Business<

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, Technology Innovator and Environmental Innovator awards, we invited companies to submit a document explaining why they were deserving of the award. Plus, we asked PC Pro's team of 20 contributing editors and ten staff members to submit their nominations.

To decide who won the Environmental Innovator award, we joined forces with SustainIT (a charity set up to promote the role of ICT and deliver social, economic and environmental benefits) to decide the winner.

For the Real World Business award, the decision was down to PC Pro's contributing editors: the people who advise businesses on strategy and purchases as part of their working life. And for the Technology Innovator, we open up the voting to the whole of PC Pro's team, including the contributing editors.

The Hardware of the Year is decided by the editorial staff on PC Pro: essentially, the most desirable kit that's passed through our hands this year. The Software of the Year, however, is a little different: we drew up a list as an editorial team, but we opened the final vote to the 20,000 readers who took part in our survey.

The Labs award is given to the company with the most consistent scores across all of its appearances in PC Pro in the past 12 months - and we also factor in the number of Recommended, Labs Winner and A List awards it won per appearance.