Greenery as an Element of Imageability in Window Views
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper addresses a very interesting issue regarding the role of green seen / enjoyed by windows can improve the quality of life and well-being of citizens. A very topical issue to try to make cities more livable for people and that can give important indications regarding the way to design / redevelop city neighborhoods and also to understand if and how to densify the cities themselves in consideration of the scarcity of soil resources and the need, however, to guarantee adequate green spaces.
Ljubljana is the city where the research was carried out and it is interesting that different districts were chosen with very different characteristics regarding green spaces.
The research questions of the paper were as follows:
1. H1: The multi-layered nature of green in the city has an important impact on the landscape quality of the urban environment.
2. H2: The indicators used in the study for the perception of urban imaginability lead to similar results, regardless of the survey approaches used.
3. H3: The indicators of perceived urban imaginability used in the study are open to different interpretations.
From a methodological point of view, however, I note some critical issues:
1. nothing is said in "materials and methods" about the type of statistical analysis of the data that has been conducted and, subsequently, rank analysis, correlation analysis, etc. are introduced without saying how these have been applied and how; Therefore, on this point I would suggest explaining better in the meaning of these analyzes and how they were conducted.
2. as for the evaluation method, I have doubts about the photos that have been evaluated because they are very different from each other and offer views from very different perspectives (near, very far, etc.) and, therefore, I believe that this can influence the result. In this sense, it would have been more logical and interesting to offer visions all similar in terms of field of view.
3. regarding the research question itself, I wonder (and, above all, I ask the rapporteurs of the paper) how it is possible to understand if these indicators give rise to different interpretations with a simple statistical analysis? I believe that in this area it is necessary to adopt a qualitative approach through a method that seeks to deepen the different meanings that the various interviewees give to photos and / or indicators.
Some technical notes
Rows 359-365è It is claimed to have calculated the Pearson rank correlation coefficients and the results of hypothesis tests on correlation coefficients separately by neighborhood ... I ask you to better explain what these analyses allow us to understand and what the sentence means: "For these two window views, the risk is higher mainly due to the difference in ranks for the indicator ‘Texture of surfaces’ (I5), where the difference in ranks between response groups in relation to the survey approach is as high as four units.”
Rows 378-384è it is claimed to have tested hypothesis 3 with a test of the difference in the expected values of the ranks of the two survey approaches (see figure 2) .... I would ask you to explain better why this conclusion is reached.
Rows 395-402è it is stated that a quick examination of the ranks of the indicators selected in Figure 2 shows that the indicator for multi-level greening (I4) makes an important contribution to the scenic quality of the urban environment because in four views, indicator I4 has a rank of 1 or 2 also tested with contiguity tests .... I would ask you to explain better why this conclusion is reached.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we sincerely thank the reviewer for his/her comments, which have contributed to a clearer presentation of the problem, interpretation of the results and to a clearer discussion. Responses to your comments are added in attached file,
with kind regards authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Review on ‘Greenery as an Element of Imageability in Window Views’
The paper is rather old subject on landscape preference studies. There has been a great number of research on similar topic of preferences for scenic beauty and preferences. In particular, using photographs is well explored already in the field. I am not sure why authors chose this subject and investigation methods. Rather, this research requires further facets such as psychological factors and personal experiences of interviewees.
Generally speaking, having ‘greenery’ provides a lot of beneficial factors but collecting quantitative evidence is very difficult. Classifying landscape and greenery is one thing and seeking preferences from target group who have seen those greenery landscape classifications is another. I am not too sure why the authors implemented same old method to investigate this old subject and why did not make further steps of subject and methodology.
Having said that, the paper is well organised as an academic paper including background, research questions, methodology, and discussion sections.
Some details are as follows.
Page 4 it requires some explanations about why Ljubljana city was chosen for a case study.
Page 5 some explanation is required how the paper controls other factors such as memory, experience, and any kind of psychological aspects of interviewees.
Page 6 please elaborate your contribution to the field.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we sincerely thank the reviewer for his/her comments, which have contributed to a clearer presentation of the problem, interpretation of the results and to a clearer discussion. Responses to your comments are added in attached file,
with kind regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors must make small changes to the introduction, some hypotheses must be more specific, and there are details to indicate in the methodology. Comments are noted in the attached pdf
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we sincerely thank the reviewer for his/her comments, which have contributed to a clearer presentation of the problem, interpretation of the results and to a clearer discussion. Responses to your comments are added in attached file,
with kind regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
This is an interesting study. Using primary survey data, the authors explored whether respondents perceived the presence of greenery as an important element of visual comfort. The research design is relatively reasonable, and the conclusions are basically in line with common sense. Here are some suggestions for your reference:
(1) The marginal contribution of research needs to be further clarified. Authors may include marginal contributions from the research in the introduction or discussion section.
(2) With a sample size of only a few dozen, the authors need to be more specific about what the population represents. It is suggested that the sampling process should be further elaborated.
(3) As for the verification of the research hypothesis, the author mainly uses t or Chi-square test, which does not control the influence of other possible factors. Why the author did this requires further explanation. For me, the regression method is probably better than the current method.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
we sincerely thank the reviewer for his/her comments, which have contributed to a clearer presentation of the problem, interpretation of the results and to a clearer discussion. Responses to your comments are added in attached file,
with kind regards authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been improved regarding the methodological aspects and the explanation of the results.
The authors' responses to my observations were timely and well explained and, therefore, the paper can be published.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors managed to deliver the answers which I have raised appropriately.
Reviewer 4 Report
I have no other comments, thank you.
