An Initial Study of Soundscape of Visually Impaired People in Urban Parks

Abstract

Urban parks in a developing country hardly accommodate people with disability. The objective of this study is to investigate the possibility of improving urban parks using the perception of visually impaired people of urban parks’ sonic environment. This study was conducted off-site the urban park using a questionnaire survey with two groups of participants: sighted people (35 participants) and visually impaired people (35 participants). The analysis was conducted using semantic analysis from the word used for explaining the sonic environment. This study shows that the visually impaired participants explained the sonic environment with more terminology (56 terminologies for visually impaired participants and 32 terminologies for sighted participants). It indicates the engagement with the sonic environment is higher for the visually impaired participants compared to the sighted participants. Further analysis using semantic categorization also shows that the visually impaired participants have broader perception compared to the sighted participants. The sighted participants use the terminology related to the perception of comfort, dynamic of the sound source, and other perceptions (visual and thermal). The visually impaired participant answers also represent the same aspect, but with more perception: safety, directivity, and space.