How do I become a Tech Guide reviewer?

Interested in becoming a Tech Guide reviewer? Here’s how you can get involved.

The reviews we publish in the Tech Guide are written by our team but reflect the experience of our reviewers, who are people from the Parkinson’s community.

Before registering to become a reviewer in our ‘Reviewer Pool’, please read our initial expectations and requirements below.

What do we mean by “review”?

You’ve probably seen a wide range of product reviews before, from one-sentence summaries on Amazon to in-depth analysis from Which? or lifestyle magazines. We publish a mix of both.

Anyone from the Parkinson’s community can use our “Community Views” feature to share a short review of any product in the catalogue based on their own experiences. But the long, considered reviews depend on our pool of volunteer reviewers.

How many people do we need?

We will ask 6 people to review each device or app, and want to make sure we have a range of views. When we need to review something new, we’ll look at our Reviewer Pool and try to find suitable people with a range of backgrounds, and who are actually available and interested in this specific thing.

Who can become a reviewer?

Anyone living with Parkinson’s in the UK.

Do I need anything in particular to be a reviewer?

Depending on what we ask you to review, you may need certain things. For example, if we ask you to review a smartphone app then you’ll need a suitable smartphone. Or if we ask you to review a device that uses a website to share information with your carers or doctor, you’ll probably need a computer with an internet connection.

However, in general, we expect that you won’t need anything in particular to take part. And, if a particular device or app does need something, we’ll make this very clear when we ask whether you’d like to help review it – before you commit.

You don’t even need to be online. Although we will generally use email as our main way of communicating with the Review Panel, we can use the phone instead if that’s better for you. You can write up your review on a computer or on paper, and send it to us by email or by post. We’ll even pay for the stamps!

What will we ask of you?

When we shortlist you for a product review, we’ll send you an invitation. This invitation will tell you about the device or app we’re asking you to try, what symptoms it claims to help with, who it says it’s suitable for, and when we would want your report back by.

If you agree to help, we’ll first ask you some questions, to establish how the relevant symptoms affect you without the device.

You won’t have to pay for the device or app, nor for any postage other expenses involved. We will deal with all of that.

Then, we’ll send you the device (or a download code for an app) and ask you to use it according to its instructions for an extended period – at least 4 weeks and perhaps longer. During this time, we’ll ask you to make frequent notes of your relevant symptoms and your experience generally. We’re obviously interested in how effective the device is at managing or reducing symptoms, but also in how easy it is to use, how you feel about using it, whether you think it’s worth the price and whether you’d buy one yourself.

You may need to commit a significant amount of time to the app or device, or it may be something that slots into your daily routine. Keeping the notes on your experience is very important.

At the end of the review period, we’ll ask for your response to the specific questions, and any other feedback you have. We’ll allow enough time for you to send your report back, as we know that it may take some time.

We’ll use your report and those of the other reviewers to write a single overall review. We won’t publish your name or contact details, or let the supplier of the app or device know who you are.

We will ask you to keep confidential the fact that you’re acting as one of our reviewers. This is to protect your privacy, but also to help protect our reputation and work in putting these reviews together.

We hope that you’ll be able to keep hold of the device or app you’ve been reviewing for us if you want to, but we can’t promise that. We know that giving you something that makes your life better and then taking it away isn’t going to be great, and we will do what we can to avoid that.

What do we want to know about you and why?

We need to know a few things about you so that we can ask you to review devices and apps that are relevant to you. And we need to know a few other things so that we can set your review alongside other people’s reviews appropriately. The precise list of questions is still being worked out, but is likely to include at least the following.

• Where do you live (country, region and city)?

• How can we contact you?

• What are your gender, ethnicity and age?

• How long has it been since you were diagnosed with Parkinson’s?

• How does your Parkinson’s affect your life? What symptoms do you have (from a list) and how bad are they?

• Have you used any Parkinson’s-specific devices or apps in the past? Which ones? Why did you stop using them (if you did)?

This may seem like quite a lot, but we’ll make it as easy as possible for you to share this information. And we will treat the information you share with respect, and will never disclose it to anyone outside of Parkinson’s UK unless it’s legally necessary.

We currently have 250 volunteers already signed up to be a Tech Guide reviewer and we’re not looking for any more at the moment. You can sign up to our newsletter to find out when registrations re-open.