Using Ngene-Lite for DCE designs
You can now create experiment designs directly in SurveyEngine using Ngene™ Lite. This is preferred choice of professional researchers who need D-Efficient designs and the ability to add priors and control dominance.
What Ngene is and when to use SurveyEngine's built-in Ngene Lite design generator.
Knowledge Base -> Experiment Design -> Methods & Academic
Ben White, 07.07.2026
When to use Ngene Lite in SurveyEngine
SurveyEngine's built-in generator is a light version of the popular Ngene software.
It allows building of Orthogonal, Random, Full factorial and Efficient designs based on local or Bayesian priors.
It also allows avoidance of dominant alternatives, user-specified profile constraints, interaction effects and linear and categorical specification.
Simple but powerful Design Generation
It's possible to build a valid D-Efficient design directly in SurveyEngine with one click and zero configuration.
This is a great way to get started then edit and modify, for example, priors.
TLDR Quick links
Generating Ngene designs in SurveyEngine
Step 1: Build your experiment in the SurveyEngine design Generator. Specifying which attributes are linear and their values.
Step 2: Go to the click on the Generate using Ngene button
Step 3: Review the automatically generated D-Efficient script. Change the design type or parameters as you wich
Step 4: Click on the Generate button, selecting a longer time for better designs.
Step 5: Preview the choice tasks to confirm attribute levels display correctly for each choice set.
FAQ's on Ngene Lite
Do I need to buy an Ngene™ Desktop license?
No you don’t. Once you sign up to a SurveyEngine subscription you can start building Ngene™ designs from within your browser while you are creating your experiment.
References
Bliemer, M.C.J. and Rose, J.M. (2010). Construction of experimental designs for mixed logit models allowing for correlation across choice observations. Transportation Research Part B, 44(6), 720–734.
Ready to generate a Bayesian D-efficient design? Log in to SurveyEngine and open the Ngene script builder.
Or Contact us at support@surveyengine.com — we're glad to help.