Measurement of user satisfaction in flexible housing design: The fuzzy TOPSIS method

Flexible design is one of the powerful tools of the architectural discipline in responding to the needs of the ultimate user of the dwelling. It can be said that there is a direct relationship between the factors such as the harmony between the user and their living space, the level of satisfaction of their needs and the satisfaction that the user will have from their houses. There are several studies in the literature on residential satisfaction and the factors affecting this satisfaction. In these studies, chiefly the parameters of user satisfaction were dwelled on and mainly, the survey method was used to determine these parameters. It is inevitable that this method, which provides data from the user experience, has some problems in terms of the data reliability users, who are asked to evaluate a piece of information they have interpreted through their experiences in a numerical range (Likert scale), have to choose the number closest to the expression in their minds while making their choices. Through this, the evaluation process brings data losses with it. The process of converting a verbal information into a numeric range and processing it in this way is available to data loss. Besides, since the competence of the decision makers on the subject cannot be acknowledged, an uncertainty about reliability in determining number values and ranges takes place. In the literature, there are multi-criteria decision-making methods that allow the inclusion of uncertain situations to the process. With the utilization of these methods, complex and uncertain data can become mathematical and open to evaluation thanks to the methods' special tools. In the thesis study, Emphasis is placed on evaluating the Fuzzy TOPSIS Method as a tool to prevent data loss during the evaluation of survey data. For this purpose, literature studies on the subject were scanned, the parameters were evaluated, and sources were used, and these studies that classified the residential user satisfaction parameters by using the survey method as the basic data were examined. The parameters obtained from the studies were processed with the Fuzzy TOPSIS Method according to their objective ability to be evaluated within the scope of flexible design. Objective parameters classified according to the potentials of flexible design are interpreted by the Vertex Method. Therefore, the effect of flexible design on residential user satisfaction was evaluated by using Fuzzy TOPSIS Method with numerical data. An evaluation has been made on whether fuzzy TOPSIS is a tool to prevent possible data loss.. The effect of flexible housing design on user satisfaction is emphasized by using the Fuzzy TOPSIS Method and it is aimed to draw attention to the importance of flexible design.