E-Access Bulletin Live

A consumer reviews website for people with disabilities and older people has put a call-out for users to give their opinions on all kinds of devices and products, helping inform other consumers before they buy.

The ‘Rate it!’ site features reviews of a wide range of products that can assist people with disabilities and older people.

Products include anything from mobility aids (such as wheelchairs and walking bikes) to kitchen and garden appliances (including adapted cutlery and a robotic lawnmower that cuts grass by itself), to clothing and footwear (such as easy-tie shoelaces), to computing and communication devices, including tablet computers and voice-controlled systems.

Users can search for products or select by category. Each product features an overview of basic information, but the key focus is the user reviews section, where feedback can be left.

Crucially, product reviews can be left by anyone and are not written by specialists. The feedback lets others know how the product works and how it helps someone with an impairment complete specific tasks.

Rate it! is now keen to build a larger community of readers and reviewers, and the team have put a public call-out to ask for visitors to the site to leave  feedback – positive and negative – about products and devices they have used. No technical knowledge is needed to leave a review, and the team are keen to hear from any consumers with disabilities and older consumers.

Reviews can be left through the site directly (after a simple registration process) or by phone, by calling 020 7427 2460.

Rate it! has been developed through a collaboration between the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RiDC), Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCiL) and Enabled by Design. The project is being supported by Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning (DRILL).

Chris Lofthouse, Outreach Manager at RiDC, spoke to e-Access Bulletin about Rate it!: “From initial research, it was found that there wasn’t web space for disabled people to post meaningful product reviews. Rate it! provides a high-quality online space where people can research, review and share knowledge about specialist and mainstream products in one place.”

Find out more and read or leave product reviews at the Rate it! website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2018 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Ageing, Assistive technology, Health, Independent Living, Mobile phones, News, Older people, retail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.