Estudo e caraterização dos hábitos de utilização e navegação em jornais online

Abstract

Looking at the state in which Internet is nowadays, where everything is developed with the goal of a navigation experience as intuitive as possible and even with content which suits the likes and needs of users it becomes a fundamental matter to understand the way users interact with the information presented to them. In this dissertation, it is intended to study and characterize the habits of use and navigation throughout online newspapers, having as a case study the JPN, analysing the interaction of users with news content over a period of more than 10 years, virtually since the establishment of JPN to this day. An investigation was carried out around Web Mining, especially Web Usage Mining, after which the fundamental metrics to characterize the habits of use and navigation throughout online newspapers were identified and the corresponding data was collected using Google Analytics. The large time interval is extremely important to understand how the habits and the users themselves have changed over the times. In parallel with the data gathering an inquire was made to journalism students to understand which metrics are valued by those who are in this area. Analysing the data collected it is possible to realize that the newspaper is mainly consulted in the Porto region by people between 25 and 34 years old. It is also possible to observe how social networks and mobile devices have evolved with a percentage of accesses to the JPN pages increasing 23% from social networks and 45% from mobile devices, since 2006. The schedules of consultation also have changed over the years. In 2006, the busiest hour was between 9am and 10am with 5,9% of daily views, decreasing until 1,7% at 11pm. In 2016 the peak is reached at 3pm, with 6,4% of daily views, decreasing very little until 11pm when the registered visits are 5,75% of the daily total. Also, the average time for each session has increased going from 73 seconds in 2005 to 158 seconds in 2017, an increase of 46%. The largest number of multimedia content is responsible for this increasing. This study confirms an everyday life tendency which consists of the increasing use of mobile devices. Understanding the way users interact with information is paramount for journalists to adapt the reality that surrounds them and thus keeping their readers loyal to the newspaper.