This is wrong.
It’s like asking the musician and the listener what they think of the sound of a particular musical instrument playing a random melody, and assuming that has some bearing on the effect of a musical performance.
Or asking the chef and the diner what they think of the taste of an herb, and assuming this has some bearing on the success of a dish.
For design it’s useless, and is detrimental to students developing their own discriminating taste.
As statistical research it is hopelessly amateurish.

I’m not sure you fully understand what I am looking for. It is not about preference or success, it is about the underlying meaning found in type designs. Even if a typeface is intended to be completely neutral, it carries certain attributes along with it. For example, when a designer is creating a poster for a rock concert, they will, most likely, not choose an old-style serif type, because it implies some kind of formality and age. What I am studying is the consistency of this so called “typeface personality” among people of varying backgrounds.

If you are still opposed to the study, that is fine. There are plenty of other people who have expressed interest in the topic.

>I am surveying both designers and non-designers,

Everyone thinks they are a designer. Also designers and non-designers who think they are designers are wrong 86% of the time. These are facts. Sorry. :-(

I agree, sii. In saying I am surveying both designers and non-designers, I meant that I am surveying everyone– without discrimination. Sorry for being unclear.

I understand what you’re looking for, and I’m sure Nick did as well. But your survey is pretty much worthless considering you don’t actually gather any data about who’s opinions you’re soliciting. There are both designers and non-designers here. Type designers and graphic designers. People from all over the world. Young and old. Male and female. Etc. Also, what you’re researching is a complicated and multifaceted phenomenon that is amateurish to quantify it in such a superficial way. If you want some more useful data fluff you should develop a more robust semantic differential that also includes some information about your subjects.

Okay, jackson, thanks for your feedback. What you are saying is absolutely correct and I realize this is not the most robust or comprehensive survey. All I am looking for is evidence of a trend. I chose to make the survey rather quick and easy to obtain as many samples as I could. I am treating this more like a preliminary study– to find if there is any trace of objectivity in the “personalities” of typefaces. My professor is actually hoping to take the study further in the near future.

Thank you for the feedback and I’d also like to thank everyone who has taken the survey.

I agree completely with Nick, and I think he “understood” quite well what the intended point of this is…

“I chose to make the survey rather quick and easy to obtain as many samples as I could.”
…which may just be what keeps you from getting any results that are actually meaningful.
To name just one thing, the method isn’t well thought out. You’re offering adjectives to pick and choose from; but certainly the range of words that designers and non-designers use to describe typefaces will not be congruent.

Making a survey that yields meaningful results – and then actually finding those – doesn’t just mean filling in “quick questions” with equally quick multiple-choice answers, putting that online and telling people to go there. It’s actually a science in itself.

I’d kind of agree too. The words on your list are not words I’d really use to describe fonts. You could add a field ’add your own tags’ which would perhaps give useful info. Or check out the tags people have added on MyFonts.com.
Or engineer it so that for each page, a random selection of 12 words from a dictionary of many more pops up. Having the same tags on each page makes it really difficult to differentiate my feelings about each font.
Perhaps you could also show all the samples on one page to be better able to assign different tags to each.
I’m also a bit mixed up about whether I should tag ’new’ for something that I haven’t seen before or for something I know was designed in the last few months or last year as opposed to centuries ago. The same goes for ’weak’...am I supposed to tag ’weak’ if I don’t like the font or if it’s light on the page?...it’s a bit unclear at what level the tags should be attributed.
Bear in mind that the designers and typographers here are pretty rigorous and that’s what makes Typophile so useful. But you won’t get anywhere near the same answers as non-designers, and quite probably the answers will be rather difficult to draw conclusions from. I guess I’m saying I’d like to see this work...good luck! ;)

It is axiomatic that lay readers and typographers see type differently, and that content, layout and specification affect the viewer’s perceptions.
Even for the typographer who is familiar with a face, and for whom it has a wealth of meaning of which the lay reader is ignorant, there are other considerations.
For instance, in the many ways of categorizing types, consider this index of familiarity:
- Types I have worked with but not used in finished pieces
- Types I have used in finished pieces
- Types I have seen occasionally used by others
- Types I have seen often used by others
- Types I have only seen in print or online specimens
- Types I have seen discussed

It is cool that that you built it but yes, to actually be useful you will have to rethink the purpose and the methods techniques used. Good luck with version 2!

Some modifications for version 2:

1. Investigate using pseudowords instead of using real words as the semantics of the words will almost certainly influence subjective response.

2. Randomize the order of the pseudowords as well as the order of the responses to counterbalance the design.

3. Create a simple form which requires people to input demographic data: Age, gender, vision, first language, education &c… so you can draw correlations.

This is a good start.