What's the most important characteristic you look for in a pen? Rank the following, in order of most important, to least important:

(1) smoothness
(2) pen appearance
(3) ink color
(4) tip size
(5) barrel width

For me, it'd be smoothness first, ink color, tip size (i like the fatter tips), barrel width, and then pen appearance (gotta give ugly things a chance too!)

What about you??

Most important
1 - Pen Appearance
2 - Smoothness
3 - Tip Size
4 - Ink Color
5 - Barrel Width
Lease important

Yeah, apperance is most important to me!

(2) pen appearance
(4) tip size
(1) smoothness
(3) ink color
(5) barrel width

A lot of them are sort of tied though...like I wouldn't be able to choose between a pen with a very fine point and another one that's very smooth. Or a pen that's very smooth vs a very nice ink color, and so on. :P

1) Tip Width - Gotta be 0.5mm to 0.38mm, the latter preferred
2) Ink Color - Gotta be black
3) Smoothness - X-Fine points aren't always smooth
4) Pen Appearance - I like a good looking pen but ugly writes just as well
5) Barrel Width - My hand is accommodating
8)

(1) pen appearance- too many clashing colors/opaque brightly colored plastic puts me off
(2) tip size-.3-.4mm is the ideal range, not too thin to do heavy duty writing, but not too thick to look clumsy
(3) ink color- black pls!
(4) barrel width- slimmer the better
(5) smoothness- not really that important- I care more about how the ink looks on paper than how it 'feels', hence the preference of the signo DX over hi-tec-cs

This is tougher than it appears. Though I'm ranking things below, they really all work together, and even the #4 or #5 item on the list can ruin a pen for me and make me not like it at all.

1) smoothness - I can handle even pens I don't like as much if they write really well. But if everything else is right, smoothness is the icing on the cake!

2) barrel width - I also like slim pens....big fat pens really annoy me and turn me off pretty dang fast. It'd have to be an amazing pen in every other area for me to even consider using a fat pen otherwise. This is also one of the criteria I use to narrow down choice fast....if it's fat I hardly even give it a glance!

3) Pen Appearance - I like classy looking pens...and will go for one with a nicer look than something flashy or hip if I can at all choose. The Zebra F-series pens are very nice affordable pens that look great. I love the classic, no-nonsense look of the Pentel Superballs. And the Rotring Esprit (non-telescoping) Pens are very nice looking as well. Too funky and crazy and it turns me off fast!

4) tip size - though this is actually one of the more important things to me, I can live with a medium or broader pen if it fits all the above nicely. But I prefer fine or micro points wherever possible. Just getting them to also flow smoothy and fast is not always a realistic compromise. So, I like fine points, but they also need to flow smoothly and be able to handle fast writing.

5) ink colour - I usually go for black, but there are times I like other colours, and with the nice selection in gel pens these days, a nice green or purple is really great at times. So having the choice is nice, for sure. But I have definitely turned down red or blue pens that I'd have bought it a flash if it were in black. Colour is probably the least important, as long as I *can* get the colours I want....and black is a good all around safe colour in almost any pen. :)

1-3 are most important.

1. Barrel Width. If the ink is switchable I will not hesitate to switch barrels from a fat to skinny. I have small hands. I hate hate hate writing with huge barrels. If I can't switch then I get rid of it.
2. Tip Size. I'm not picky for free pens but I will never personally buy a pen with a tip bigger than .5/fine, unless there's something special about it.
3. Pen Appearance. not really picky here. I must be able to see how much ink there is though. the barrel doesn't have to be transparent but the ink straw must be. I hate not knowing how much ink I have left.
4. Ink color. I will write with anything that's of a visible color. I pass on the pale/white/yellow pens.
5. Smoothness. Unless the pen skips or is otherwise scratching the paper, I don't care.

also important: I hate antibiotic barreled pens! There's this new trend (mostly with papermate) of making antibiotic pens! As someone who likes to keep my immune system in practice (and is concerend about superbacteria) I switch ink out of these barrels. I refuse to write with these.