Analyzing urban furniture condition and measuring citizens satisfaction, Case study: Balikhlichai River margins, Ardabil, Iran

One of urban planning goals is the improvement of quality public spaces. The existence of standard urban furniture, not only is a necessity of these spaces, but it also has a major role in citizen satisfaction of them. This research has a descriptive and analytical methodology and a theoretical and functional approach, and it was carried out in 2015 with the purpose of analyzing and measuring satisfaction of urban furniture in public spaces with the use of surveys. In this research, 400 samples have been randomly selected for questioning by using Cochran formula. 33 variables have been used to measure and analyze the status of furniture in the area under study. The reliability of the instrument was calculated as 0.891 using Cronbach's alpha. The goodness of fit of the data with the use of Kolmogorov–Smirnov test shows a significance degree of less than alpha (0.05), therefore, our data distribution is abnormal, so nonparametric tests have been used. For data analysis, Spearman's coefficient, chi-square regression and factor analysis have been used to determine the main factors affecting the variable of satisfaction. In addition, SPSS and GIS software have been used to process, analyze and extract the information. The findings showed that A) The satisfaction level of this area's urban furniture is lower than the theoretical average and B) The satisfaction of some elements such as flooring is higher than the theoretical average compared to other factors. At the end, according to the research findings, some recommendations have been offered to optimize urban furniture.