Study on analysis of questionnaire data based on interactive clustering

Several kinds of values have been employed with respect to the diversification of individuality in the market. Some of these values are currently supported by only a few people, who are referred to as a ldquominority grouprdquo. However, there is the possibility that such groups will grow into majority groups with changes in historical background or people´s sensitivity. It is both important and effective for market analysis to determine these minority groups at an early stage. Companies often employ questionnaires to develop marketing strategies or design new products, which offer a chance to determine these minority groups. With conventional methods, respondents to a questionnaire are classified based on such attributes as gender and age, and then the classified groups are analyzed or compared. Although conventional analysis is effective for grasping the overall tendency of the evaluation data, it is difficult to determine minority groups because of the diversity of individuality. On the other hand, we have proposed clustering methods based on the tendencies of the answers to the questionnaire. This paper proposes a new method for visualizing the evaluated data based on both the obtained values and their correlation with cluster respondents interactively in the visible space. This paper applies the proposed method to Web questionnaire data and shows that an analysis of the results effectively assists us to determine minority groups.