Run a MaxDiff ranking and hear the reasons in the same interview

Hand people twelve flavor ideas and ask them to rate each one, and many will land on a four out of five. MaxDiff forces the trade-off: from each small set, pick the most and the least appealing, and a clear ranking comes out the other end. A survey MaxDiff stops at the order. When the team asks why one idea won and another came last, answering usually means a second study.

MaxDiff in interviews, how it works and what it changes, no sound needed.

How it works

• List what you want ranked. Add a MaxDiff question to your topic guide and enter the claims, concepts, features or flavors. Items can carry an image.

• Conveo builds the choice sets. Each participant works through small sets, balanced so every item shows up a fair number of times, and picks the best and worst in each. It runs as a grid on desktop and as cards on mobile.

• The AI research assistant asks why. Once the choices are in, the interview turns to that participant's own pattern: why an item came out on top or at the bottom, and the situations and trade-offs behind it.

• Ranking and reasons land together. Analysis shows the MaxDiff scores in a bar chart next to your themes and quotes. Results feed the executive summary and exports, and you can ask Talk to Your Data about them.

One study for the ranking and the reasons

Score and explanation come from the same people in the same session, with no second round of fieldwork and no files to merge. When a stakeholder asks why the runner-up claim lost, the answer is already in the study.

Research teams asked for it in four situations

These come from teams we work with in food and drink, consumer goods, insurance, travel and technology. We kept them anonymous.

• Claims and messages. Rank a list of claims, see why the winners work, and check with a follow-up whether a stronger claim is missing from the list.

• Concepts and innovation ideas. Pick which concepts move forward and learn what would strengthen the ones that fell short.

• Features and flavors. Recreate the trade-offs people make when they shop, and hear what tips each choice.

• Category drivers. Compare what people say matters with what they actually pick, and get the reasons behind the gap.

What this means for your research

The trade-off exercise and the conversation about it happen in one video conversation, so you walk into the debrief with the order and the reasons side by side.

One limit to know: the ranking reflects the people you interview. With a qualitative sample, read the scores as a direction and lean on the reasons. When a decision rests on precise scores across a large population, plan the sample size for that.

Three minutes on MaxDiff, start to finish

See how choice sets, follow-up questions and the ranking chart connect in one study.

Watch the walkthrough

Charles Allison, Conveo's Insights Lead, used MaxDiff throughout 15 years of client-side research and brought the idea to the team. Setup details are in the MaxDiff questions guide.