Samples & Design: Dynamic Design

Samples & Design: Dynamic Design

Overview

While the pre-set designs are ideal in most testing scenarios, sometimes you might encounter a situation where you do not have a set number of samples for every panelist. Here are a couple of example scenarios:

  1. Scenario 1: You might have a large pool of samples for panelists to pick any number of them, or a specific number of them, to test at home.

  2. Scenario 2: You might not have specific samples to speak of; maybe you are letting panelists create their own samples, such as sandwiches, for example, where panelists add their own samples into the test to evaluate.

You might have a completely different scenario where pre-set designs are not the ideal solution for. Please let our Support Team know if you have a testing scenario where Dynamic design would be helpful to you.

In this workflow we will share some general information about the Dynamic designs and focus on scenario-based steps for implementing the feature into your testing.


Feature Compatibility

The Dynamic design feature is compatible with Standard tests.

Other test types are not compatible with this feature.


Where to Find the Dynamic Design

The steps outlined here are just to show you where to find the feature. Please follow scenario specific steps further down on this page that is applicable to you for full details on using the feature.
  1. In a Standard test, go to the Samples & design tab.

  2. Click Edit design and toggle Advanced to Yes.

  3. From the Design type list, select Dynamic design.



Scenario 1: Panelists Need To Pick Any X Out of Y Samples To Evaluate

You have 8 chocolate bar samples that need to be evaluated. There are some important details you need to factor in when planning the test:
  1. Samples need to be evaluated in their entirety; panelists are required to evaluate whole chocolate bars, from packaging to consumption.

  2. You do not have enough of every sample to be evaluated by all panelists. Based on the data from a previously conducted screener test you know that some panelists don't typically purchase some categories of samples (e.g. white chocolate, fruit flavours, etc).

  3. There are time constraints that don't allow you to extend the evaluation across more than 2 days, one chocolate bar sample per day.

  4. Based on the above details, you want to enable panelists to pick any 2 samples that they feel they would like to evaluate, rather than forcing them to evaluate what they might not like.

Panelist View
Before we dive into the test setup, let's have a look at an example of what panelists will see, what their experience will be. This will help you understand what it is that you will be building in the remainder of the workflow.



Test Setup
  1. Create a new Standard test or clone an existing Standard test that may have similar questions already in it.

    When cloning a test, especially if the new test will be linked to a Schedule, we recommend cloning without keeping results or panelists.


  2. Go to the Samples & design tab.

    1. Specify the number of samples sets you need and set the number of samples to 8.

      1. Click Edit design and toggle Advanced to Yes.

        1.  From the Design type list, select Dynamic design.

        2. Toggle Allow panelists to add samples throughout test to No.
          If your scenario requires the combination of pre-set samples and panelist-created samples, toggle this option to Yes.

        3. Toggle Show search bar to No.
          Our scenario has only 8 samples, so the search bar is not necessary. If your scenario has a larger pool of samples, feel free to toggle this feature to Yes.

        4. Update the default instructions that the panelists will see so that it is clear to them what they are supposed to do. They need to know the following:
          a) They have to select both samples when prompted to do so because they will not be able to come back to the sample selection screen once they are past it.

          b) They will have to evaluate the samples in the order they select them.

          Save the changes.


        5. Still in the Samples & design tab, use the Options menu to perform any of the actions available there as needed.

        6. Click Edit samples and update the sample names or any other information you wish to update.


      2. Update the Build tab as needed.

      3. To help you preview the test, add your own panelist(s) in the Panelists tab, or add guest panelists to enable you to preview the test properly.

      4. Set the sample set distribution as needed, and any other options found in the Logistics tab to ensure that your testing needs are met.

      5. Preview the test.

        When done previewing the test, if you are not linking this test to a Schedule, add the panelists you wish to take the test, and go to the next step.

        If, however, you are planning on linking the test to a Schedule, leave the Panelists tab empty (remove any panelists you may have used for previewing purposes), and link the test to the Schedule if you have not done that already.

      6. Run the test.


      Scenario 2: Panelists Need To Create As Many Sandwich Samples As They Like

      You do not have samples to distribute to panelists, but you will provide ingredients for panelists to create the samples; the sandwiches. The sandwich samples will be added to your test by panelists before they evaluate them. They can create as many samples as they like.


      Panelist View
      Before we dive into the test setup, let's have a look at an example of what panelists will see, what their experience will be. This will help you understand what it is that you will be building in the remainder of the workflow.



      Test Setup
      1. Create a new Standard test or clone an existing Standard test that may have similar questions already in it.

        When cloning a test, especially if the new test will be linked to a Schedule, we recommend cloning without keeping results or panelists.


      2. Go to the Samples & design tab.

        1. Specify the number of samples sets you need and set the number of samples to 0 (zero).

        2. Click Edit design and toggle Advanced to Yes.

          1. From the Design type list, select Dynamic design.

          2. Toggle Allow panelists to add samples throughout test to Yes.

          3. Toggle Panelists can only see the samples they created to Yes.
            Depending on the objective of your test, you can toggle this option to No and display to all panelists all the samples that each of them created. They will be able to select the samples that others created, but will not be able to tell who originally created the sample.

          4. Toggle Show clone button to No.
            If you prefer to display the clone button, you can toggle this option to Yes. The clone button can speed up sample name updates for new samples if they are similar, for example.
            This is what the panelists will see:



          5. Toggle Show search bar to No.
            If you toggled Panelists can only see the samples they created to Yes, it may be beneficial to toggle this feature, Show search bar, to Yes, also.

          6. Update the default instructions that the panelists will see so that it is clear what they are supposed to do. They need to know the following:
            a) They have to add all the samples that they created when prompted to do so because they will not be able to come back to the sample selection/addition screen once they are past it.

            b) They will have to evaluate the samples in the order they added them.

            Save the changes.


        3. Still in the Samples & design tab, use the Options menu to perform any of the actions available there as needed. For example, it might be beneficial to add a "Description" field, or "Ingredients" field if you have them available in your subscription, so that panelists can list out the ingredients they used when assembling their sandwich samples.

          If you would like to get custom sample fields added to your subscription, please contact Compusense Support for assistance.

        4. Click Edit samples and update the sample names or any other information you wish to update.


      3. Update the Build tab as needed.

      4. To help you preview the test, add your own panelist(s) in the Panelists tab, or add guest panelists to enable you to preview the test properly.

      5. Set the sample set distribution as needed, and any other options found in the Logistics tab to ensure that your testing needs are met.

      6. Preview the test.

        When done previewing the test, if you are not linking this test to a Schedule, add the panelists you wish to take the test, and go to the next step.

        If, however, you are planning on linking the test to a Schedule, leave the Panelists tab empty (remove any panelists you may have used for previewing purposes), and link the test to the Schedule if you have not done that already.

      7. Run the test.


      Analysis for Data on Dynamically Added Samples

      For the Scenario 1, it is likely that most of the samples will get seen by more than one panelist.

      For the Scenario 2, every sample added by panelists is considered a unique sample, even if some samples are named exactly the same. Here is an example illustration from the Data tab where we can see two different panelists naming one of their samples exactly the same, but that does not automatically combine the data:


      If you are looking to combine data from samples, for example with the same name, you could use the Advanced search & analysis across tests feature to accomplish that.

      Regardless of the scenario, within Compusense, you can get counts, means, and Standard deviation in the Standard report, and percentage crosstabulations in the Consumer report (depending on the questions used in the test). For any further analysis we recommend exporting raw results and analyzing in another statistical package. 


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