Meet your creature

The creature is the fastest way to see your personality at a glance. The best place to meet yours is the Big Five personality test, because all five traits get to shape it.

Your creature does not wait for the end. It appears with the first question and keeps you company the whole way through. It blinks. It breathes. When you answer, it reacts: a nod when you agree, a curious tilt, a little shrug when you sit on the fence, and a cheer when you finish.

By the last question, it has taken its final shape, and you get to see who you have been building.

The creature is built on the five-factor model used in personality research. Each trait has its own job.

Openness sets the colour and the decoration. Score high on openness and your creature gets a golden accent and a scattering of bright spots across its body, like someone who cannot resist a patterned shirt. Lower openness gives a deeper, quieter tone that suits a creature who knows exactly what it likes. See openness.

Conscientiousness sets the outline and the posture. A highly conscientious creature has a crisp, fine outline and stands perfectly upright, as if it has already checked the train times twice. Lower conscientiousness gives a bolder, wobblier line and a relaxed slouch. It will get there. It is just enjoying the walk. See conscientiousness.

Extraversion sets the size and the energy. Extraverts get a taller creature with bigger eyes and a wider grin, looking straight at you. Introverts get a smaller, more compact creature with a gentler smile, whose gaze drifts a little to the side, as though it is thinking about something interesting. See extraversion.

Agreeableness sets the roundness. The more agreeable you are, the wider and softer your creature becomes, and high scorers get rosy cheeks. Lower agreeableness gives a squarer, firmer shape that looks ready to hold its ground in a meeting. See agreeableness.

Emotional sensitivity sets the brows. If you feel things strongly, your creature's eyebrows tilt into an expressive, slightly worried angle. If you stay steady under pressure, its brows sit flat and calm. See emotional sensitivity.

Some quizzes give your creature a finishing touch. Depending on what you take, it might sprout a pair of leaves, grow antennae, wear antlers, put on a top hat or a party hat, or turn up to the Christmas guest quiz in a Santa hat.

The career interest test hands your creature a tool to match your strongest interest. Practical types get a spanner. Investigative types get a microscope. Artistic types hold a paintbrush. Social types carry a whistle, enterprising types a briefcase, and conventional types a clipboard. Every quiz also gives the creature its own colour, so your collection builds up into a little family.

Your creature is tied to your result. The drawing on your results page is the same one on your share card, and anyone who opens your link sees exactly the creature you saw. It will not shuffle or change when someone else looks at it.

If you prefer less movement on screen, your device's reduced motion setting keeps the creature perfectly still, with every detail of its shape intact.

Creatures are best in pairs. Share your result with a friend and they can take the same quiz to meet their own. Then you see the two creatures side by side.

That is where the fun starts. Put a tall, wide-eyed creature next to a small one with a sideways glance and you can see at once who will be organising the evening out. Put a crisp, upright creature beside a happily slouching one and you know who will remember the tickets. Two round, rosy creatures will lean in towards each other.

It works brilliantly with partners, housemates, siblings and teams. Ask everyone to take the same quiz, then line the creatures up. Within a minute, the conversation turns from the drawings to each other: who is the spotty one, who is always first to the party, and who is quietly keeping everything running.

The creature takes a few minutes to grow, and it is waiting for you at the first question. Take the Big Five personality test, meet your creature, and send it to a friend to see what theirs looks like.