Scholarly record

THE PERCEPTION OF ARCHITECTURAL BARRIERS BY DISABLED PERSONS BASED ON THE CASE OF THE CITY HALL OF KATOWICE

Radoslaw Wolniak, Bozena Skotnicka-Zasadzien

Abstract

The article presents the manner in which people with disabilities of varying degree perceive the architectural barriers they encounter while using the services of the City Hall of Katowice. 23 variables connected with different types of architectural barriers were taken into account in the analysis; the perceived quality was graded on a 7-point scale. A further analysis was also carried out, exploring the relationship between the degree of a person’s disability and the perceived quality of the facility. Disabilities were divided into 3 degrees: mild, moderate and severe. A non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used to analyse the data. The studies conducted have shown that disabled persons perceive the way the City Hall has been adjusted to their needs as relatively good; they also point out certain areas which need improvement, such as parking lots, especially their number. The analysis of variance has indicated that people with various degrees of disability differed in their evaluation of the services of the City Hall. Severely disabled persons have rated the city hall’s adaptation worse than those whose disabilities are moderate or mild.

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