A visual preference survey uses images and simulations to help people focus on how they would like to see future development occur. 

The Visual Preference Survey (VPS) was administered at the Cultivating Concepts Conference on Saturday afternoon, January 14, 2006, by Tony Nelessen of A. Nelessen Associates (ANA).  Participants rated individual images in several categories based on how appropriate they felt it would be to continue that pattern or design in Carroll County in the future.  A Demographic, Market, and Policy Survey accompanied the Visual Preference SurveyTM to help further identify participants’ preferences for the future.

ANA also created a version of that VPS to provide an opportunity for folks who were not able to attend the conference to also take the survey and provide their input.   The survey was available online from Wednesday, January 25, 2006, until Sunday, February 12, 2006.  ANA received 550 online responses.

The process consisted of two surveys.  The first survey was the survey on which the images that you see were actually rated.  The second survey was a Demographic, Market, and Policy Questionnaire.  The information from this survey was used by ANA to identify whether there were any correlations in demographic characteristics to visual preferences.

Thanks to everyone who participated!  You can click on the links below to download the final report of the results provided by ANA.  The entire file is very large.  Therefore, the report has been broken down into several separate files to make it more manageable for downloading.