Introduction to MaxDiff Scaling

Introduction to the MaxDiff Scaling Statistical Model

• MaxDiff Scaling Analysis
• Preference Analysis
• Product Features and Benefits
• Resource Allocation
• Interests and Activities
• Potential Marketing Strategy
• And much more!

MaxDiff is an approach for obtaining preference/importance scores for multiple items (brand preferences, brand images, product features, advertising claims, etc.). Although MaxDiff shares much in common with conjoint analysis, it is easier to use and applicable to a wider variety of research situations. MaxDiff is also known as "best-worst scaling."

Research has shown that MaxDiff scores demonstrate greater discrimination among items and between respondents on the items. With our program you can create MaxDiff question that is simple to understand, so respondents from children to adults with a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds can provide reliable data. Since respondents make choices rather than expressing strength of preference using some numeric scale, there is no opportunity for scale use bias. This is an extremely valuable property for cross-cultural research studies.

QuestionPro's advanced reporting makes it easy for researchers with only minimal exposure to statistics to conduct sophisticated research for the scaling of multiple items. The trade-off techniques used in MaxDiff/Web are robust and easy to apply. The resulting item scores are also easy to interpret, as they can be placed on a 0 to 100 point common scale and sum to 100.

For market research purposes, MaxDiff can be used to narrow down the traits that a customer finds most important in a product. For example, a respondent might be presented with a list of five traits about a product, and they then have to select which item is most important to them and which is least important to them.