Abstract: Systems and methods for choice experiments to model user behavior are disclosed. Choice experiment surveys require respondents to choose by performing trade-offs between combinations of features included in alternatives under consideration. Users specify constraints and an attribute space of features to investigate, and generate candidate experimental designs based on the constraints and attributes. Users select an optimum design tailored to the problem to be solved, instead of having to modify their problem to match a known experimental design. An online survey assembly module generates survey templates used by a data collection and sampling unit to display treatments to survey respondents. A model generation module analysis the collected data, and a model explorer module enables exploration of results. The system has the advantage of making choice modelling accessible to a wider range of users, and enables considerable freedom and scope to investigate problems of specific interest.

Abstract: Choice experiments are a type of survey which can be used to model user behaviour, in which survey respondents are presented with a choice of combinations of features and forced to one set of features. A computational system for performing choice modelling is described. This system comprises a user interface module, that allows an end users to specify what they set of features they wish to investigate (the attribute space), and constraints. A design generator module is used to generate an experimental design that matches the user defined attribute space. A range of different designs can be generated and compared to identify the optimum design. The design generator allows the user to specify their exact problem, rather than forcing them to modify their problem to match a known experimental design. An online survey assembly module is used to generate survey templates and a data collection and sampling uses the templates to display treatments to the respondents.