What's New—The Highlights

• Numerical and graphical optimization: These popular Design-Expert features are now included in Design-Ease.
  
  

• Pareto chart of t-values of effects: Quickly see the vital few effects relative to the trivial many from two-level factorial experiments.
  

• New “Color By” option: Color-code points on graphs according to the level of another factor—a great way to incorporate another piece of information into a graph.
  

• Right-click on any response cell and “ignore” it: This feature allows you to ignore a response data point without having to ignore the entire row.
  

• “Screen tips”: Press the new tips button for enlightenment on the current screen—this is especially helpful for novice users.
  
  
• 3D surface plots for categorical factors: See colored bars towering above others where effects are greatest.
  
  
• “Min Run Res IV” (two-level factorial) designs for 5 to 50 factors: Screen main effects with maximum efficiency in terms of experimental runs.
  
  
• “Min-Run Res V” designs for 6 to 31 factors: Resolve two-factor interactions (2FI's) in the least runs possible while maintaining a balance in low versus high levels.
  
  
• Two-level fractional factorials for up to 512 runs and 21 factors: Build bigger designs than ever-before possible.
  
  
• On plots of effects simply draw a box around the ones you want selected for your model: This is much easier than clicking each one with your mouse.
  
  
• Crosshairs window: Predict your response at any place in the response surface plot.
  
  
• Full-color contour and 3D surface plots: Graduated or banded colorization adds life to reports and presentations.
  
  
• Magnification feature: An incredible tool for expanding a mixture graph that is originally a small sliver and difficult to interpret.
  
  
• Add blocks D-optimally: Automatically add blocks to an existing design.
  
  
• Points on 3D graphs: See "lollipops" protruding from surfaces where actual responses were collected.
  


• Row(s) in the design layout are highlighted when point(s) are selected on the diagnostics: The highlighting feature makes identification of problematic data much easier.
  

• Design-builder updates resolution of two-level fractional factorials when the number of blocks is changed: Immediately see how segmenting a design might reduce its ability to resolve effects.
  
  
• Block names are now entered during the design build: Identify how you will break up your experiment, for example by specific shift, material lot or the like.
  
  
• “Min-run Res IV plus two” option: Ask for two extra runs to make your experiment more robust to missing data.
  
  
• User-defined base factors for design generators: You have more flexibility to customize fractional factorial designs.
  
  
• Expanded D-optimal capabilities—impose balance penalty, force categoric balance: This feature helps users equalize the number of treatments.
  
  
• Coordinate Exchange capability for D-optimal designs: Avoid the arbitrary nature of designs constructed from candidate point sets.
  
  
• In General or Factorial D-optimal designs, categorical factors can be specified as either nominal or ordinal (orthogonal polynomial contrasts): This affects the layout of analysis of variance (ANOVA).
  

• “Semifold”: In only half the runs needed by a normal foldover, augment Res IV designs to resolve specified 2FI's aliased in the original block of runs.
  
  
• Add center points, blocks and replicates without rebuilding the design: This will be a real time-saver.
  

• From Alias List, Pareto Chart or Effects Plots views, right-click on effects to show aliases: Never lose sight of what really is being measured in fractional-factorial designs.
  
  
• Select alternative aliased effects: Choose what you think makes most sense based on your subject-matter knowledge.
  
  
• Backward stepwise regression is now applicable to factorial designs: This is useful for quickly analyzing general (categorical) factorials.
  
  
• Means and standard deviations for all experimental inputs (factors) and outputs (responses) are added to the Design Summary screen: This provides a handy assessment of your system.
  
  
• The user can define their preference for sums of squares calculations for both numeric and categoric factors to be sequential, classical, or partial: These distinctions are important for statisticians who want to do ANOVA in specific ways.

• DFFITS: Spot influential runs via this deletion diagnostic that measures difference in fits when any given response is removed from the dataset.
  
  
• DFBETAS: See from this deletion diagnostic how model terms change due to an influential run.
  

• Grid lines on contour plots: See more readily what the coordinates are at any given point.
  
  
• Select the details printed on flags planted on contour plots: As a user you now can control this feature.
  
  
• Confidence bands on one-factor plots: Get a good feel for the uncertainty in a predicted response as a function of the factor level.
  
  
• Color-codes for positive versus negative effects: Assess plus or minus impacts on half-normal and Pareto plots.
  
  
• Smart tic marks: Get more-reasonably rounded settings straight off.
  

• Export the graph to a file: Save the graph as an enhanced metafile (.emf) that can be inserted as a picture from file to Microsoft Word and the like.
  
  
• Set row status to normal, ignore or highlight: This allows users control over their design matrix.
  

• Annotation option on reports: This will be a boon to those who may be unfamiliar with all the esoteric statistics needed for design evaluation.
  
  
• Customizable design evaluation content and power levels: Use the OPTIONS button to select which statistics to display, specific power levels to report, and whether to display the standard error or variance on the graph (with the option to scale by N—the number of runs in the design).
  
  
• Specify model terms to ignore so they don’t display in the alias list: For example, don’t bother showing interactions of four or more factors.
  
  
• Evaluation can be done on either design or a particular response: Shows the effect when data is missing from a specific response, but not all responses.
  

• Tutorial movies: See Flash demo’s of features via Screen Tips—a very effective way to show how to navigate through the software.
  
  
• Internet links: These are helpful connections to further information.
  

• XML (eXtensible Markup Language) capability: Export design files or reports in viewable format that can be manipulated for further processing (The XML tool also allows import of designs created externally).

Check out these and other features in Design-Ease, Version 7 software with our fully-functional trial.

Download a free 45-day trial now.