Click through the slideshow above to view the list of winners in each category.

What to do? For the past few years, we have sought to make it easier for those voting in the Times Union Best Of survey — what, with everyone's busier lives — by gathering the favorites of the previous years and listing them online with easy-to-use buttons that register one's vote in seconds.

Truth be told, that change made it easier for us as well, saving us hours of going through tabulations and reading often tricky penmanship on our paper ballots.

It was a good idea. What we didn't expect is that given choices of the same previous top 10s we would get — surprise — the same top 10, making for a more predictable survey, and leaving those businesses and towns that previously just missed the list or have just entered the marketplace out in the cold.

With the button version, voters still had a choice of writing in their favorites, but you know how well that works in elections. Write-ins hardly ever rise to the level of those choices already listed. Perhaps the answers we received did not always reflect the often weekly changing landscape of our region's culture and choices.

So, taking a deep breath, we decided to weigh into the unknown again by offering up a completely open ballot in each of our 78 categories. There was indeed more work to be done in the tabulations, but we were rewarded by often surprising results.

We had a thought that fewer people overall would respond, not taking the time to write out responses when they could just hit a button. We were OK with that: quality over quantity. What we weren't expecting is that close to 4,000 more people participated this year than last. It seemed that, like us, people were excited to start from scratch to determine what was the most popular in 2015. As in the past, we made an effort to separate the out-of-town chains from the locally grown businesses. It's no offense to nationwide brands that have a solid niche in our community, but it is tough for a singly located business to compete against a chain with more locations and marketing power.

The toughest subset in all this were the locally owned, multiple-location businesses. In a sense they also have an unfair advantage to the single location, but it would be tough to penalize them strictly for local growth. While we found no perfect solution, we included them on the list if a single address was included (Ichiban, Albany) and gave out honorable mentions for local chains scoring high.

We also tried to throw in some new categories such as "Best open mic" "Best suburban community" and "Best chicken wings" among others.

This year, as in years past, we have had a random drawing of those who filled out at least 20 questions on the ballot to win an Apple iPad. The lucky winner this year is Wendy Parker of Guilderland-, and you can learn more about her here

But enough with the details. It's the results that count, and it's you, the reader, who spoke loud and clear.

ghahn@timesunion.com.