Optimal design

In the design of experiments, optimal designs are a class of experimental designs that are optimal with respect to some statistical criterion. The creation of this field of statistics has been credited to Danish statistician Kirstine Smith.

In the design of experiments for estimating statistical models, optimal designs allow parameters to be estimated without bias and with minimum-variance. A non-optimal design requires a greater number of experimental runs to estimate the parameters with the same precision as an optimal design. In practical terms, optimal experiments can reduce the costs of experimentation.