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Interior design and flooring from wood are highly appreciated by consumers. Today's wood industries use mostly technical parameters to identify wood quality, whereas knowledge about consumer preferences is rarely taken into account. The exploration of terms consumers use in their day-to-day language characterising wood surfaces (Picture 1) can help to direct and focus the production and marketing of high valuable wood products according to consumers' appreciation and preferences. This study aims at (1) identifying relevant items which consumers use when assessing wood surfaces. (2) Relevant items are examined with regard to the construction of a practically feasible set of different Items and factors. The final number of items and factors should comprise the whole range of diverse aspects of the consumer's visual assessment of wood surfaces. A questionnaire in German language was used (1) to collect relevant terms and criteria in an open question. (2) A Set of 39 pre-set items, which have been found to be meaningful in earlier studies (in English language) was translated into German and offered to consumers (n = 102) to test their relevance in German language. This set of items was analysed in an exploratory factor analysis on the base of 96 answers. Two other questions requested terms (3) that were missing and (4) which were the most relevant. Out of the answers to the questions 1 and 4, objective and subjective Items (Table 1) were categorised. Based on the answers to question 2, the Kaiser-Gutttman criterion suggested a solution based on 12 factors, but further analysis revealed four factors the most appropriate solution (Table 2). Meaning and interpretation of the items and factors from this study need to be set in the context of the people's socio-demographic environment and so results cannot be generalised. The adjustment and validation of the items and factors identified in this study is recommended with regard to different panels of consumer groups and wood products, for which this study suggests adequate methods and tools for questionnaire design and data analysis. This may help to direct production and marketing of valuable wood products more effectively towards consumer's preferences with positive effects for a more efficient use of the raw material and added value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]