Samples & Design: Create a Design

Samples & Design: Create a Design

Overview

Compusense has a wide variety of pre-set experimental plans (designs) that can be added to a test to present samples in a specific order. These same designs can be used for presenting sections in a specific order.

However, sometimes a need may arise for a design that does not already exist in the Designs library. It is possible to create a custom design in Excel and then either import it into the library (useful for reusing the same design in multiple tests), or import directly into a test (useful for one time needs).

Additionally, you can create your own design directly in the test using the built-in functionality of the Samples & design tab. In this workflow we will focus on how to create designs inside tests.

The example scenarios where this feature can be useful, but not limited, to are:
  1. Placing a warm-up sample in the first position while other samples are randomized as required.

  2. Placing a fatiguing sample in the last position while the other samples are randomized as required.

  3. Grouping subsets of samples and randomizing them within their groups. This is useful when partially presenting subsets of samples that need to be grouped together for preparation and serving purposes rather than randomizing across all samples (e.g. samples that require to be served while they are still hot from the oven, or a stove top).

Follow the steps below for the specific scenarios mentioned here, and feel free to apply these strategies for scenarios that are not mentioned here. If you have a scenario where following the steps below doesn't help you accomplish what you need, please contact our Support Team for assistance.


Create a Design With a Warm-up Sample in the First Position

In our scenario, we have 8 samples, one of which is warm-up sample.  We would want to place the warm-up sample in the first position for every panelist, and randomize the remaining samples in a balanced fashion.

The warm-up sample is the sample #1 in the list of samples in the test.

  1. Go to the Samples & design tab.

  2. Click Edit design.


  3. Toggle the Advanced option to Yes.

  4. From the Design type dropdown list, select Create design. You will notice that there are two groups of samples, and the first group contains all the samples that exist in your test.


  5. Click inside the Group 2 to bring up the list of samples. Place a checkmark in front of every samples except for the first one.


  6. Click out of the Group 2 box, anywhere in the white space on the page to save the changes. You will notice that your selections in the Group 2 reflected in the Group 1 properly, meaning the sample 1 remained in the Group 1 while all other samples are now in the Group 2.


  7. The first group of samples, i.e. the sample 1, will have the Fixed order design selected by default, and this cannot be changed since there is only one sample in the group.

    The second group of samples will have a balanced design selected by default, but you can use the dropdown list to select a different design. If the design you need is not available, follow the steps for creating and importing designs into the Designs library.

    The base design table will reflect the changes you made. If necessary, after saving the design you created, you can shuffle sample sets to ensure better balance in samples sets.


  8. Click Save to save the changes.
Use the View design button in the Samples & design  tab or print Serve report in the Logistics tab to review the full design.


Create a Design With a Fatiguing Sample in the Last Position

In our scenario, we have 8 samples, one of which is spicy/fatiguing.  We would want to place the fatiguing sample in the last position for every panelist, and randomize the remaining samples in a balanced fashion.

The fatiguing sample is the sample #3 in the list of samples in the test.

  1. Go to the Samples & design tab.

  2. Click Edit design.


  3. Toggle the Advanced option to Yes.

  4. From the Design type dropdown list, select Create design. You will notice that there are two groups of samples, and the first group contains all the samples that exist in your test.


  5. Click inside the Group 2 to bring up the list of samples. Place a checkmark in front of the sample number 3. Click out of the Group 2 box, anywhere in the white space on the page to save the changes.

    You will notice that your selections in the Group 2 reflected in the Group 1 properly, meaning the samples 1, 2, 4 through 8 remained in the Group 1 while the sample 3 is now in the Group 2.

  6. The first group of samples, will have a balanced design selected by default, but you can use the dropdown list to select a different design. If the design you need is not available, follow the steps for creating and importing designs into the Designs library.

    The second group of samples, i.e. the sample 3, will have the Fixed order design selected by default, and this cannot be changed since there is only one sample in the group.

    The base design table will reflect the changes you made. If necessary, after saving the design you created, you can shuffle sample sets to ensure better balance in samples sets.

  1. Click Save to save the changes.
Use the View design button in the Samples & design  tab or print Serve report in the Logistics tab to review the full design.


Create a Design With Subsets of Samples Grouped Together

In our scenario, we have 8 samples that need to be baked in the oven and served while hot, and two samples are spicy/fatiguing. Baking and serving 8 different samples while they are still hot is often not possible to perform without affecting the temperature on some of them.  For this reason, we need to group samples into subset of them and randomize them in the balanced fashion. Additionally, we would also want to place the fatiguing samples in the last two position for every panelist.  Therefore, we would want to group together samples 1 through 3, then samples 4 through 6, and finally samples 7 and 8. We would use the Partial Present feature to present subsets of samples on different days.

The fatiguing samples are the samples #7 and #8 in the list of samples in the test.

  1. Go to the Samples & design tab.

  2. Click Edit design.


  3. Toggle the Advanced option to Yes.

  4. From the Design type dropdown list, select Create design. You will notice that there are two groups of samples, and the first group contains all the samples that exist in your test.


  5. Click inside the Group 2 to bring up the list of samples. Place a checkmark in front of the samples number 4, 5, and 6. Click out of the Group 2 box, anywhere in the white space on the page to save the changes.

  6. Click Add group to create the last group for the fatiguing samples.


  7. Click inside the Group 3 to bring up the list of samples. Place a checkmark in front of the samples number 7 and 8. Click out of the Group 3 box, anywhere in the white space on the page to save the changes.

    The base design table will reflect the changes you made. If necessary, after saving the design you created, you can shuffle sample sets to ensure better balance in samples sets.

  1. Click Save to save the changes. When ready, set up the Partial Present blocks to present your subsets/groups of samples on different days.
Use the View design button in the Samples & design  tab or print Serve report in the Logistics tab to review the full design.

Please contact Support Team with any questions you might have about this article or any other aspects of the software.


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