When you come to 16 Style Types, you’ll discover that to get your Style Type Report, you have the option of Downloading your Style Type Report (if you already know and can confirm your type) or taking our specially designed Best Fit Type Process.
Now some of you may ask: “Why reinvent the wheel? Why not just get people to do any of the available online tests?”
This is a completely valid query, so we thought we’d address our reasonings and a little about our Best Fit Type Process, which is unlike any of the currently available instruments, quizzes, questionnaires and surveys – yet according to our testers who have gone through it, our Process produces remarkably accurate results.
Let’s Talk About Free Online Personality Quizzes
One option is to tell 16 Style Types customers to take a free quiz (they abound on the internet) and then they can come back and purchase their Style Type Report. This would be a great idea, except it has one fatal flaw – research shows that the free online quizzes have an accuracy rate of around 50%.
This means you’d have a 50% chance of getting the right Style Type Report and it being a really valuable tool for you to help you along your style journey, or getting the wrong Report which wouldn’t resonate or be anywhere near as relevant for you.
So this option was immediately off the table. We know that getting the right Style Type Report feels like coming home, being understood and will give you the right information to assist you in further developing your style.
Using a Paid Personality Assessment That Has Been Rigorously Tested
A second option was partnering with a provider of a valid, tested psychological type assessment, sending 16 Style Type customers to their website to get their type, then sending them back to us to get their Style Type Report. This option was something we seriously considered, and we had even spoken to a provider of one of these validated type-verifier processes.
Speedbumps to this approach were a few. First, there were a bunch of technical issues on how to do this that would require significant work, time and money to make it work seamlessly. Then there was the additional complexity by working with an external partner who had their own goals, direction and brand. And finally, we worried that some of our customers might wonder what was going on – where were they being sent, and why? What was this other website, and why had they been taken away from 16styletypes.com?
Adding all this up meant that there was the potential for confusion and ongoing complexity, combined with the need to make our Style Type Report more expensive to cover the cost of using externally provided software. And we really weren’t keen to make our Style Type Reports more expensive, and we were very keen to keep things streamlined and as simple as possible.
And we also got to thinking – we have two type experts on our team, who together have nearly 50 years of experience in this field… and altogether on our team we have three very capable, passionate and resourceful women, right? So what was stopping us from developing our own type discovery process? Turns out, the answer was – nothing.
Develop Our Own Best Fit Type Process
Dr Jane Kise, a well-known author, researcher and consultant on psychological type, is a member of the 16 Style Types Team. We also have Jill Chivers, another certified type practitioner with 20 years of experience making type concepts come alive for individuals and teams. The two of us, at almost the same moment, thought, Why not create our own Best Fit Type Process? Within our team we have a depth and breadth of experience with psychological type and we knew we had the skills to produce a quality Process, avoiding the pitfalls of many online quizzes. Our third team member, Imogen Lamport, had already committed to becoming certified and was eager to deepen her knowledge by working alongside Jane and Jill on this. Aware of the great responsibility this choice brought with it, we decided to go down this path.
After some team brainstorming and discussion, we decided to develop a Best Fit Type Process that mirrored the discoveries we had made in our research about style and psychological type. This meant we would not be taking a “dichotomy” approach, the standard way of doing these assessments (a dichotomy approach has a person deciding between Extraversion and Introversion, between Sensing and iNtuition, between Thinking and Feeling, between Judging and Perceiving).
A New – and Nuanced — Approach
We had discovered in our research that there was a clear and distinct relationship between function pairs (these are the two middle letters of your four-letter type, which we’ve named the Super Styles) and a woman’s Style Type. This was our first step in building our Best Fit Type Process.
This alone represents a departure from expected ways of approaching type discovery. It’s an innovation in type discovery, and is one of the reasons our results have been so phenomenal.
We broke down this Best Fit Type Process into three distinct stages, engaging and inviting participation and discovery in every stage of the Process. At every stage, you have the opportunity to move backwards and compare other options until you’re totally satisfied that what you’re choosing is the Best Fit for you.
It’s a nuanced refinement process rather than the standard approach to discovering your psychological type.
Our materials are also fresh and contemporary, and include video and custom-made infographics. Along with written descriptions, our Process engages and invites participation by catering to a range of learning needs in a dynamic way.
“As I was reading the descriptors through the 3 parts, I kept having lightbulb moments. The Aha! moments kept on surfacing as I went through the stages. As soon as I compared SF with NF (even though I’d previously been typed as an E/INFP), I knew that NF wasn’t the one, and it progressed from there. The idea of comparing is central in my opinion. I feel very confident now with my type. I already feel lighter and more buoyant and I feel validated by this process. I have perused my ESFJ report and I’m very impressed with how accurate it is and with the amount of work that you all have done for the 16 style types.”
Testing our Best Fit Type Process
Just as we had our Style Type Reports validated and reviewed in our creation process, we have also tested our Best Fit Type Process. Our testers included women who know and use their type daily (including type professionals with a deep understanding of the concepts) and also with women who didn’t know their type (or thought they knew it but had been mistyped) until they did our Best Fit Type Process.
What has been interesting is that some of our reviewers have no knowledge of psychological type concepts, have only done the free quizzes and or just been incorrectly typed, and yet they have gone through our Process and found their Style Type. They have all spoken about how ‘at home’ they now feel with their type. Out of confusion, there is now clarity.
Here is another experience:
“First off OMG, mind-blowing, still reeling from your Best Fit Type Process as I was totally not expecting my result! Guess I’ve been thinking I’ve been living someone else’s life or not understanding who I really was……I’ve read a lot about 16 types over the years and thought I knew what I was but clearly, I didn’t… I spent hours on the process, pausing, thinking, looking up further definitions online just to realize you guys really understood the components of each letter and how they are manifested in real life/thoughts. Once I made my decision I sent my report to my printer, started reading pages as they were printing off and started laughing and thinking you guys were living in my head! Honest to goodness, page after page was me. How I shop, why I shop, how I’ve always approached style, how I’m perceived by others, my pitfalls, ways to up my game. It was all there in glorious detail. You all are brilliant, just brilliant.”
Take the Best Fit Type Process and Confirm Your Style Type
Even if you think you know your psychological type, if you have any hesitation at all about the result (or you did it so long ago you just don’t remember much about it) we recommend you take Best Fit Type Process as it will confirm that you indeed will be receiving the best Style Type Report for you.
There is no additional cost to taking our Best Fit Type Process to discover your Style Type, making it an easy decision to say YES and do it.
“I am not only an MBTI practitioner (and member of the British Association of Psychological Type) but have also trained as a colour & image consultant – albeit some years ago — so what you have created is of real interest to me. My report describes my Style in extremely accurate terms for my Type. To think of these two concepts coming together is inspiring. I will be reading every other page of your website now and will encourage my friends and colleagues – Type trained or not – to do the same. Equally, when offering Colour & Image sessions as I sometimes do I will be recommending my clients go to your website.” — ESTJ
Now it’s your turn to discover your Style Type using our Best Fit Type Process.
