With the continuous expansion of the domestic snack food market， it is crucial to understand the key factors affecting consumer preferences and guide product improvement. This article focused on spicy strips with different brands， which carried out the evaluation of key sensory attributes for sensory evaluation groups and consumers. Penalty analysis preliminarily explored the sensory attributes and improvement directions of each product， and studied the taste characteristics through ANOVA and correlation analysis. The preference mapping was deeply processed and characterized the results of QDA and consumer preference. And it also verified the reliability of the Penalty analysis. The results showed that the sensory attributes and preferences of the six brands of spicy strips were both significantly different. Penalty analysis proposed key sensory attributes that influence consumers' preferences and identified improvement strategies for sensory attributes of 6 spicy strip samples preliminary. It was found that the preference rate of consumers for samples DLB， DDR， ZCL and WLQ was 50%-80% through preference map technology， and it was speculated that sweetness， chewiness and oily juice were the sensory attributes that could potentially affected consumers' preferences. The preference rate of consumers for GSW and HMH was 20%-30%， speculating that salty， spicy， numb， and essence spicery were the sensory attributes that potentially affected consumer preferences. By comparing the results of QDA， Penalty analysis and preference graph， it was found that the overall conclusion was consistent， and the final optimization and improvement strategy was determined by combining the three conclusions. The sensory attribute improvement model of spicy strips established in this article can provide a reference for the improvement of taste characteristics of spicy strips and the development of new products.