1.1 ,This practice describes a popular industry protocol for the rheological characterization of waterborne architectural coatings using three commonly used rotational bench viscometers. Each viscometer operates in a different shear rate regime for determination of coating viscosity at low shear rate, mid shear rate, and at high shear rate respectively as defined herein. General guidelines are provided for predicting some coating performance properties from the viscosity measurements made. With appropriate correlations and subsequent modification of the performance guidelines, this practice has potential for characterization of other types of aqueous and non-aqueous coatings.