Fried Chicken Face-Off

Design principles we put in place:

  • Single (but not double) blinded: The taster doesn’t know which (Ezell’s or KFC) chicken they are eating, but the server does.
  • Randomizing:
    • Which order of chicken you eat: KFC first or not
    • Which kind of meat (wing, breast, leg) between tasters. Each taster would try two kinds of meat.
  • Controlling for:
    • Which kind of meat within a taster. Ex: if you eat a KFC wing, you will necessarily eat an Ezell’s wing
    • Temperature: We picked a place that is central to both Ezell’s and KFC, given the cooling down of the chicken that can occur during travel.
    • Kind of batter: Wwe can’t do KFC crispy chicken b/c Ezell’s doesn’t have that type of batter. This is a limitation of the study b/c some feel the crispy chicken is better.
    • Visual look: We thought blind-folds were a bit excessive
  • Replicates: Just one replicate of each kind of meat due to finite budget and finite stomach space.

Results:

Final score: KFC 8, Ezell’s 4. Some notes:

  • Even though people were “blinded”, most knew which of the two pieces was from KFC.
  • People generally felt
    • The meat from Ezell’s was better, and this was magnified as the chicken went cold.
    • The skin was better at KFC. Given that fried chicken is what it is b/c of the skin, people voted for KFC.
  • Future studies should
    • Consider the chicken and the skin separately.
    • Have “overall experience” scores.
    • Blocked users into two groups first: those who’ve had Ezell’s before and those who didn’t.
  • This can be viewed as an example of a pilot study used to inform how to design a study appropriately.

Caution: Grad Students NOT at Work

Drawing