CBC core settings

The goal of CBC design is to collect enough information from each respondent to accurately estimate their preferences without overwhelming them. Discover automatically recommends settings for the number of tasks, concepts, and versions in your exercise, striking a balance between precision and respondent effort while ensuring attribute levels are distributed evenly.

To customize these defaults, toggle on Override recommendations. With the toggle off, input fields are disabled and Discover's recommended settings apply. Switching it back off reverts to the defaults.

Controls the number of choice tasks each respondent answers.

Discover may recommend a relatively high task count depending on your attribute and level structure. In general, reducing this number is not recommended since fewer tasks mean less information for estimating accurate preference scores.

If the recommended task count feels too high for your audience, consider:

• Reducing attributes or levels. Fewer attributes reduce the tasks required while maintaining accuracy. Limiting exercises to around 10 attributes or fewer also helps minimize fatigue.
• Using larger sample sizes. With more respondents, random error tends to cancel out, allowing fewer tasks while still achieving reliable aggregate results.

Controls the number of product concepts respondents compare in each task. Discover bases its recommendation on the largest number of levels in any attribute.

Statistically, more concepts per task improve precision. Practically, more concepts increase cognitive burden and may be harder to display on smaller screens.

• Show at least three concepts per task (plus the "none" option) in most studies.
• In sensitive contexts such as healthcare decisions, two concepts may be more manageable.