Taste Test Quick Start Guide

To create a new Taste Test

Click on the New Taste Test button in the top right corner of the TASTE TESTS page. The New Taste Test dialog box will open.
The only required field when creating a new test is Name. If your product has more than one version, add the version number to the name of the test.
Information in the remaining four fields is optional and can be done later.
After you click SAVE, the newly created Taste Test page will open.

At this point, you can change any of the information in the above fields, as well as configure some additional properties, such as whether the survey will be anonymous. Since we will be inviting the Tasters via email, this test will not be anonymous.

A note about saving: There is no SAVE button for the Taste Test page. All of your changes are automatically saved. However, as you add questions to the survey, they will need to be saved..

Add the Product

The Manage tab provides space on the right side of the page to add one or more products. Products are any of the Recipes that have not been moved to Production. We’ll just add one product, our delicious Sourdough Bread.

To add a Product:

Click the large + symbol inside the circle beneath the PRODUCT SECTION label. A search dialog will open, allowing you to search for products.
Click OK
Once a product has been added, Flavor Studio will add it to the list of products, along with a random number that will be used when referring to the product in the survey. This code should be used when presenting the sample to the tasters.
If the product has an associated image, it will appear beside the product.

At any point, you can edit the products and change the associated product image. Details on all these operations are described in the TBD article link.

Create the Questionnaire

The Questionnaire section allows you to design easy-to-use sensory survey instruments, for anonymous or identified respondents. Flavor Studio provides the ability to create every kind of sensory survey question. These capabilities are fully described in the Taste Test Questionnaire article.

Surveys are ordered into three sections:

Screener Questions
Product Questions
Follow-Up Questions

Each of the sections is initially empty as you add new questions they will be added to the chosen section. Within each section, you are free to order the questions as you prefer.

We’ll add a question for each section that demonstrates the range of questions Flavor Studio can create. Let’s create a Screener question.

Screener Question Types

Screening questions let a survey creator target questions to a specific audience by filtering respondents. The current Screener dropdown list includes the following:

Always - Never
Race/Ethnicity
Income
Age
Frequency
Recent experience
Gender

We’ll add a question about Income.

To Add the First Screener Question

Click the Questionnaire tab.
The Question Designer will open displaying two tabs: Info (default) and Options.
On the Info tab, click the Section dropdown and choose Screener. The form will change to show the fields needed for a Screener question.
On the right side of the dialog, click the Select screener dropdown, and choose Income. This will generate a set of seven options for typical income brackets. Select screener dropdown.
Just below the Section dropdown is the Question Name field.
Enter Income. The Name will be used in a label test form and in the Results of the test.
Underneath the Question Name field is the Question Prompt. This field contains the actual question presented to the tasters.
Enter: Which of the following best describes your personal income last year?
At this point you can add, delete or change any of the response options generated by Flavor Studio.
In the bottom right corner of the Question Designer you will find two buttons to ADD IMG save or ADD IMG cancel adding or modifying a question. Questions that have not been saved will be lost and cannot be recovered if the web page is changed to a new URL.
When you click ADD IMG save, the Question Designer will display the Question Name, Prompt, and Response Options. Under the list of options, you’ll see the following text: Required Question. Let’s change this.
If you place your mouse over the bottom right corner of the Question Designer you will now find four buttons: Edit (pencil) Preview (eye) Duplicate (2 documents) Delete (trashcan). Click Edit. The Question Designer will display the edit fields.
This time, click the Options tab, just to the right of the Info tab. For this type of Screener question, there is only one option: whether this question is required or not. Since this survey is not anonymous and personal income can be a sensitive subject, let’s make this question optional: uncheck the Response Required checkbox.
Click ADD IMG save.

That’s basically the process for each Questionnaire section and for every type of question. If you like, add a second screener question, otherwise let’s move on to a Product question.

To Add a Product Question

Click the New Question button (blue circle and PLUS symbol) in the upper right of the list of questions.
Under the Info tab, click the Section dropdown and choose Product. There are seven predefined Product questions:
Multiple Choice
Scales
A/B
Liking
JAR - Just About Right
Attribute Intensity
Text Input
To get a better sense of each option, click them to see the predefined options.
For this example, let’s choose Multiple Choice, as it gives you complete freedom to craft the best questions for your product.
In the Question Name field, enter Favorite way to consume.
In the Question Prompt field, enter: Of the following choices, which is your favorite way to consume sourdough bread?
When you chose the Multiple Choice question, Flavor Studio added three empty options, and beside each option, the Next Step dialog, which allows you to create a branch in the Questionnaire.
In the Option 1 field, enter: Warm, with butter.
Click on the Next Step dialog to the right of Option 1, and choose Continue to next question.
In the Option 2 field, enter: As a sandwich.
Set the Next Step dialog to the right of Option 2 to Continue to next question.
In the Option 3 field, enter: Toasted.
Set the Next Step dialog to the right of Option 3 to End questionnaire. In this example, we believe that people who like their Sourdough toasted don’t really appreciate the finer points of this bread. So we will end the survey for these people.
Click ADD IMG save.

Let’s finish the last type of Question, a Follow-Up.

To Add a Follow-Up Question

Click the New Question button (blue circle and PLUS symbol) in the upper right of the list of questions.
Under the Info tab, click the Section dropdown and choose Follow-Up. Follow-Up questions have just one option: a free-form Text Input question.
In the Question Name field, enter Final thoughts.
In the Question Prompt field, enter, Please tell us what you thought about our Sourdough bread.
Click on the Options tab of the Question Designer.
Check the checkbox labeled, Load image associated with each Recipe, and the checkbox labeled Response Required.
Click ADD IMG save.

To Preview the Questionnaire

At any point in the process of creating or running a taste test, you can see exactly what the tasters will see when they take the survey.

Click the Preview button, (eye in a large blue circle) located in the upper right area of the page.
Flavor Studio will start the preview by displaying the general Taste Test information you added (or skipped) at the beginning of the Quick Start.
Click Next. Flavor Studio will display the first question.
Click any option and the preview will change to the next question.
You can choose Close or Next or, when all questions have been answered, Submit. Your responses are not recorded during the Preview.
If you want to allow the tasters to go back to a previous question
1. Click Close.
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and change the Back Button dropdown from Disabled to Enabled.
4. Click the Questionnaire Preview button again.
5. After you have responded to the first question, note that the Back button is now displayed.
6. Click Close or Submit.

Invite the Tasters

Flavor Studio provides three ways to collect responses from tasters:

Invite people via email, including bulk import of email addresses.

Distribute the QR code image (does not require an invitation)

Something akin to a central location test (CLT) where people are not invited but happen to be in the same place.

We’ll use the first method.

Invite Tasters

There are three ways you can invite tasters to participate in the survey, all explained below:

Click ADD TASTERS from the TASTERS section of the Manage tab.
Use the Send Individual Invite button (email icon),
Use the Send Mass Invite button (multiple emails icon). Both are found on each tab, located in the upper right of the test page.

Send Individual Invite

To send an Individual Invitation

Click the Send Individual Invite button (email icon) in the upper right, or click the ADD TASTER + icon under the TASTERS section of the Manage tab.
Enter the taster's name and email address and click OK. Flavor Studio will immediately send an invitation by email.

The email invitation will give the taster the opportunity to accept or decline the invitation, which will then be shown in the Confirmations section of the page.

Flavor Studio’s invitation email also makes it easy for tasters to add the survey invitation to several popular calendars (Yahoo, Google Outlook, or Apple).

Conduct the Test

Start Test

A test has not been started if the status in the Progress section is set to Pending.

If a test has not been started, tasters are unable to use any of the QR Codes, Test Codes, or web page links to the survey.

To start the test, Click the Start Test button to the right of the Progress section

An information dialog will appear:

You will be given the participation link and code on the next page.

The Progress status of the Manage tab will change to Running.

Close Test

To Close the test, which will stop tasters from responding to the QR Code, Test Codes, or web page links, click the Close Test button, to the left of the Progress section on the Manage tab. The Progress status will change to Completed.

Anyone attempting to use a web page link when the test is closed will be provided with the following notice:

Resume Testing

To resume testing, and allow tasters to respond to the surveys, click the Resume Testing button, to the left of the Progress section. The Progress section status will change to Running.

Preview

At any point in the process of creating or running a taste test, you can see exactly what the tasters will see when they take the survey by clicking the Preview button, located in the upper right area of the page.

Analyze the Results

Results

Once you have started a survey, you have access to the results. The number of results will be shown just to the right of the Results tab label.

Example:

Results (24)

You can refresh the results by clicking on the Results tab label. There’s no need to refresh the page. The results will be displayed in the order in which they appear in the survey.

Note: You can download the results in a variety of formats by using the Publish Taste Test feature.

There are three versions of the Results that can be published:

Summary Report
Comprehensive Report
Shelf Life Report

Summary Report

The Summary Report PDF will present:

each Question Name, (not the Question Prompt)
the question type (A/B, Liking, Demographic, etc.)
the available options
the number of tasters that chose each option
The percentage of tasters that chose each option
a graphical representation of the chosen option distribution

Examples

Coffee importance Scales Not at all important ⬜⬜⬜⬜ 0 ( 0%)

Somewhat important ⬛⬜⬜⬜ 10 (25%)

Extremely important ⬛⬜⬜⬜ 10 (25%)

Very important ⬛⬛⬜⬜ 20 (50%)

Preference: Coffee A or B A/B

5152-B Classic Peanut Butter Cookie 22 (100%)

Comprehensive Report

The Comprehensive Report CSV file will contain:

Participant ID - Respondent # (System-generated)
Email - email or empty if anonymous
Participant Name - if provided
Question Name - ex: Prefer A or B
Question Category - Screener, Product or Follow-Up
Question Type - Liking, Scales, Frequency, A/B etc
Product Name - ex: 5152-A Classic Peanut Butter Cookie (V2)
Product Number - ex:241
Anchors - No idea what this field is
Response - The option chosen by the Participant
Response Value - The numeric value associated with the chosen option

Shelf Life Report

The Publish Shelf Life feature combines the results from two or more Taste Tests, for different versions of the same product. The results show the change in the Taster responses over time.

The results of all the selected tests will be combined and ordered according to the Date entered in the Manage tab of the test. If no date was entered, then the results will be ordered as shown in the Publish Shelf Life dialog.

The results are presented, for each question, as a time-series line-chart showing the number of tasters that chose each option and the change over time for two or more Taste Tests.

Shelf Life Reports are available as downloadable PDF files.

Note: To change the image that is included with reports to one that represents your organization, ask your Admin to upload an appropriate image. Please see the section on Organization Logos in FS_KB_Admin_GeneralSetttings for details.