Benchmarking Shopping Malls Using Shopping Mall Universal Design Assessment Tool In Sulaimaniah,Iraq

Universal design(UD)is a design style that promotes the design for all people regardless of their abilities and sociodemographic features.The UD is also viewed as an element of social sustainability.Shopping malls,as one of the main places for leisure activities,can be designed and assessed based on UD to enhance the usability for all shoppers.At present,no clear definition of UD is available in shopping mall design criteria.Consequently,a very limited number of design and assessment guidelines are based on UD.The present study remedied this shortcoming in knowledge through translating and defining the conceptual components of UD for shopping malls.In addition,an analytical tool which named as“Shopping Mall Universal Design"(SM-UD)assessment tool was developed using a wide range of shopping mall design elements.This tool was tested in Sulaymaniyah,Iraq,where a considerable number of people with disability live in,and the condition of shopping malls are not suitable to serve these people.Concerning the translation of UD into the shopping mall design criteria,a comprehensive literature review was conducted to develop some conceptual models.For confirming these models,this study administrated a questionnaire to collect data,and the data were tested for model fitness using structural equation modelling(SEM).These models helped the researcher to identify the significant shopping mall design factors and their importance to develop the SM-UD tool as the main objective of this study.Thus,the outputs of the SEM model then were used to develop the SM-UD.The SM-UD was tested for applicability,validity,and reliability in six shopping malls of Sulaymaniyah,including Family Mall,Majidi Mall,City Center Mall,City Star Mall,Kaso Mall,and Rand Gallery Mall.The reliability and validity tests showed that most items possessed good to excellent reliability and fair to excellent validity.The innovations of this work are presenting basic design standards for shopping malls based on UD,developing and verifying of a model based on the Universal Design concept for designing and assessing the shopping malls,and developing the SM-UD tool as a systematic method of the shopping mall assessment to ensure the universality of the shopping malls.The results of using the tool support that it can identify the drawbacks of shopping malls in terms of their universality of design.Besides,the UD translated can help practitioners and researchers to design and assess the shopping complexes to ensure all shoppers are served on an equal basis.