Wikipedia
IDDEA (Interactive Discovery & Design by Evolutionary Algorithms) is a quantitative method used by Affinnova, a market research company. This method involves generating and presenting a number of design alternatives to persons who are participating in the design, selection, or market research exercise.
The participants (referred to as “selectors”) transmit data indicative of their preferences among or between the presented design alternatives, and that data is used to derive a new generation of design alternatives or proposals. The new designs are generated through the use of a computer program exploiting a genetic or evolutionary computational technique. The process is repeated, typically for many iterations or cycles.
This technology is very effective in brand development, product optimization and concept testing. Compared to conjoint analysis (in marketing), IDDEA can search through billions of options and quantifiably identify interaction effects for top performing concepts.