Building a best-worst experiment in SurveyEngine

Building Best-Worst experiments, also known as MaxDiff experiments, in SurveyEngine.

A step-by-step interactive tutorial on building a best-worst experiment in surveyengine in SurveyEngine. Preview the live tutorial, then download and upload it to your account to examine the construction.

Ben White, 08.07.2026

What this tutorial covers

Building Best-Worst experiments, also known as MaxDiff experiments, in SurveyEngine.

Each page of the tutorial demonstrates a specific technique. Work through it as a respondent first, then open the editor to see how it was built.

What you will learn

After completing this tutorial you will be able to implement building a best-worst experiment in surveyengine in your own SurveyEngine surveys.

Download the tutorial ZIP and upload it to your account to use it as a starting point or template for your own work.

TLDR Quick links

Preview the live tutorial

Download the tutorial ZIP

Open a free account

Step-by-step walkthrough

Step 1: Add a best-worst question. In the survey editor select the best-worst question type.

Step 2: Enter your items. Add all items to be ranked - typically 10 to 30 items for a MaxDiff study.

Step 3: Configure the display. Set how many items appear per task (typically 4 to 5) and whether to ask for best only or both best and worst.

Step 4: Generate a balanced incomplete block design. SurveyEngine generates a design that ensures each item appears an equal number of times.

Step 5: Export and analyse. Export best-worst scores for analysis using count scores or conditional logit.

Try the live tutorial

The live tutorial is a working SurveyEngine survey. Click through it as a respondent to see the finished result.

Then download the tutorial ZIP file and upload it to your SurveyEngine account to examine how it was built. Open any page in the editor to see the configuration.

Preview the live tutorial or download the ZIP file to load it into your account.