The Q-Sort method: use in landscape assessment research and landscape planning

The assessment of visual quality inherently involves the measurement of perceptual response to landscape. The Q-Sort Method is a psychometric technique which produces reliable and valid interval measurements of people's perceptions of landscape visual quality as depicted in photographs. It is readily understood by participants across a wide range of age groups and cultural backgrounds, and it provides data which can be mapped within a region and/or statistically compared to various social and physical dimensions.