Analysing the urban perception of visually impaired individuals on istanbul

Perceptual processes of individuals are shaped by stimuli in various environments throughout their lives. These perceptual processes cause individuals to display different behavioural patterns. The perceptual process can be summarised as follows; environmental stimuli are perceived by the senses, the cognitive information formed in the mind according to these stimuli is transformed into behavioural information that forms thoughts. Individuals perceive spaces through their sense organs. The sense of sight, which is the most important of the sense organs that enable the perception of space, is the sense organ that first perceives the components and changing situations in a space. When the sense of sight loses its function and leaves its duty to other sense organs, the behaviours of individuals change significantly. In this context, this thesis study, which deals with how the spatial perception and behaviour process differs when the sense of sight loses its full or partial effectiveness, focuses on the accessibility of visually impaired people in public space. As a matter of fact, visually impaired individuals experience various levels of difficulties in their movements and behaviours, especially in public spaces, which sometimes they can overcome and sometimes endanger their lives. However, in addition to this, sociocultural conditions as well as physical conditions of the city negatively affect the behaviours of visually impaired individuals regarding urban accessibility. In this context, the aim of this thesis is to understand how and in what kind of physical and social parameters the spatial perceptions and behaviours of a group of visually impaired individuals, who are taken as participants, in the public spaces they frequently use in their daily lives change compared to individuals without disabilities, and to examine the accessibility criteria of public spaces used by visually impaired individuals in Istanbul by using qualitative and quantitative methods. In line with the surveys conducted with visually impaired individuals, it was tried to determine the perceived physical and sociocultural factors related to the participants' individual public space experiences in Istanbul. The verbal data obtained as a result of the qualitative analysis study of the thesis were qualitatively investigated by descriptive content analysis method, and a thematic determination was made regarding which factors are more prominent regarding the public space experiences of a group of visually impaired individuals living in Istanbul. In addition, in order to statistically investigate the factors that stand out in line with the qualitative data depending on gender and age, and to understand whether the factors perceived negatively in this context change depending on gender and age groups, the frequencies obtained by classifying the qualitative data were converted into quantitative data and analysed with a comparative evaluation method between groups. With this thesis study, it has been tried to determine the physical and social characteristics of public spaces frequently used by visually impaired individuals in their daily lives within the scope of accessible design. It is aimed that the data obtained as a result of this study will provide evidence-based data for design criteria and design guidelines to facilitate the behaviours of visually impaired individuals regarding the accessibility of public spaces in Istanbul.