Sensory wheel

What is a sensory wheel?

The sensory wheel tool allows to display on synthetic diagram (donought chart), a list of words or a classification of words used to describe a product. This kind of information could also be presented on a tree diagram, however a split on a tree means a clear alternative, which is not the case here. For example, on a sensory wheel, you can decide that the left part concerns the taste, and the right part the smell, without carrying any idea that pollutes the underanding of the chart: words displayed on the left part concern the taste and words on the right part concern the smell.

The classification should ideally be conceived such that a given word is present only once on the diagram.

Sensory wheel options in XLSTAT

• Data formats: Two data formats are available - list of words or classification table.
• Reformat words: This option identifies the repeated words and removes spaces that might be before or after each word.

• Number of levels: This option controls the number of levels that should be taken into account (for nested wheels).

• Size with frenquencies: This option adapts the size of the donoughts slices depending on the frequency of each word.

Sensory wheel outputs in XLSTAT

A button preceding the wheel allows to activate or deactivate the chart. When it is active, a simple click on the chart displays a dialog box that makes possible five different actions:

• Merge two words
• Move one word after the other
• Rename a word
• Align the words with the radius
• Align the orientation of words perpendicularly to the radius