Penalty analysis

Penalty analysis is part of:

  • MX Market research and sensory analysis software

  • System configuration

    • Windows:
      • Versions: 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win 7
      • Excel: 97 and later
      • Processor: 32 or 64 bits
      • Hard disk: 150 Mb
    • Mac OS X:
      • OS: OS X
      • Excel: X, 2004 and 2011
      • Hard disk: 150Mb.

Benefits

  • Easy and user-friendly
    Easy and user-friendly XLSTAT is flawlessly integrated with Microsoft Excel which is the most popular spreadsheet worldwide. This integration makes it one of the simplest available tools to work with as it utilizes the same philosophy as Microsoft Excel. The program is accessible in a dedicated XLSTAT tab. The analyses are grouped into functional menus. The dialog boxes are user-friendly and setting up an analysis is straightforward.
  • Data and results shared seamlessly
    Data and results shared seamlessly One of the greatest advantages of XLSTAT is the way you can share data and results seamlessly. As the results are stored in Microsoft Excel, anyone can access them. There is no need for the receiver to have an XLSTAT license or any additional viewer which makes your team-work easier and more affordable. In addition, results are easily integrable into other Microsoft Office software such as PowerPoint, so that you can create striking presentation in minutes.
  • Modular
    Modular XLSTAT is a modular product. XLSTAT-Pro is a core statistical module of XLSTAT which includes all the mainstream functionalities in statistics and multivariate analysis. More advanced features contained in add-on modules can be added for specific applications. This way you can adapt the software to your needs making the software more cost-efficient.
  • Didactic
    Didactic The results of XLSTAT are organized by analysis and are easy to navigate. Moreover useful information is provided along with the results to assist you in your interpretation.
  • Affordable
    Affordable XLSTAT is a complete and modular analytical solution that can suit any analytical business needs. It is very reasonably priced so that the return of your investment is almost immediate. Any XLSTAT license comes with top level support and assistance.
  • Accessible - Available in many languages
    Accessible - Available in many languages We have ensured XLSTAT is accessible to everyone by making the program available in many languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
  • Automatable and customizable
    Automatable and customizable Most of the statistical functions available in XLSTAT can be called directly from the Visual Basic window of Microsoft Excel. They can be modified and integrated to more code to fit to the specificity of your domain. Adding tables and plots as well as modifying existing outputs becomes easy. Furthermore, XLSTAT includes some special tools on the dialog boxes to generate automatically the VBA code in order to reproduce your analysis using the VBA editor or to simply load pre-set settings. This effortless automation of routine analysis will be a huge time saver on your part.

What is penalty analysis

Penalty analysis is a method used in sensory data analysis to identify potential directions for the improvement of products, on the basis of surveys performed on consumers or experts.

Two types of data are used:

The method, based on multiple comparisons such as those used in ANOVA, consists in identifying, for each characteristic studied on the JAR scale, if the rankings on the JAR scale are related to significantly different results in the liking scores.

For example, if a chocolate is too bitter, does that significantly impact the liking scores?

The word penalty comes from the fact that we are looking for the characteristics which can penalize the consumer satisfaction for a given product. The penalty is the difference between the mean of the liking scores for the JAR category, and the mean of the scores for the other categories.

Principle of penalty analysis

Penalty analysis is subdivided into three phases:

  1. The data of the JAR scale are aggregated: on one hand, categories 1 and 2 are grouped, and on the other hand categories 4 and 5 are grouped, which leads to a three point scale. We now have three levels: "Not enough", "JAR", and "Too much".
  2. We then compute and compare the means of the liking scores for the three categories, to identify significant differences. The difference between the means of the 2 non-JAR categories and the JAR category is called mean drops.
  3. We compute the penalty and test if it is significantly different from 0.

Results for penalty analysis for XLSTAT

After the display of the basic statistics and the correlation matrix for the liking scores and the JAR data, XLSTAT displays a table that shows for each JAR dimension the frequencies for the 5 levels (or 7 or 9 depending on the selected scale). The corresponding stacked bar diagram is then displayed. The table of the collapsed data on three levels is then displayed, followed by the corresponding relative frequencies table and the stacked bar diagram. The penalty table allows you to visualize the statistics for the 3 point scale JAR data, including the means, the mean drops, the penalties and the results of the multiple comparisons tests.

Last, the summary charts enable you to quickly identify the JAR dimensions for which the differences between the JAR category and the 2 non-JAR categories ("Not enough", "Too much") are significantly different: when the difference is significant, the bars are displayed in red color, whereas they are displayed in green color when the difference is not significant. The bars are displayed in grey when the size of a group is lower than the select threshold (see the Options tab of the dialog box).

The mean drop vs % chart displays the mean drops as a function of the corresponding % of the population of testers. The threshold % of the population over which the results are considered significant is displayed with a dotted line.

Tutorials

Screenshots