Visual Preference Survey

A visual preference survey (VPS) elicits a community's design preferences by asking residents to rate a curated set of photographs — of streets, buildings, public spaces, and landscapes — on a simple numeric scale. Developed and popularized by planner Anton Nelessen, it turns the often vague question of what a community wants its environment to look like into comparable scores, revealing which images people reward, which they reject, and where they agree or disagree. The averaged ratings give planners a defensible visual brief grounded in resident preference rather than professional taste.