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Website usability testing identifies a precise methodology devoted to uncover specific bugs, idiosyncrasies and ambiguities in the way that website design impacts the effective use, legibility, navigation, and user experience of your website. In this MasterNewMedia guide you can find the best free website usability testing tools available out there.
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Website usability testing is indeed a critical component of any effective online publishing strategy. When properly utilized, usability testing allows you to effectively scan and rapidly identify which are the critical issues to be addressed in your web publication that can improve legibility, the time visitors spend on your website or the ability to turn offers for products and services into actual conversions.
In fact, what's the point of having valuable content under your hood if your readers cannot easily discover it, share it and put it to effective use?
To be of immediate "use", let me share first with you a simple set of basic tasks you can follow to start testing and reviewing the usability of your own website:
Now that you know what are the key steps needed to start a website usability test, what you really need is knowing which tools or services are available out there that you can immediately put to use to support, speed up and professionally organize those very tasks.
But how can you identify and select which is the most appropriate website usability testing tool for your specific needs, competence level and budget?
To help you get started right away, this guide provides you with a set of individual reviews, a comparative table and a comprehensive mindmap to help you select your ideal free website usability testing tool.
Please note that these free usability testing tools have a limited range of features. For example, they do not allow you to record the screen of your testers or engage them in screen-sharing sessions unlike professional usability testing solutions like TechSmith Morae, which will be covered in a separate upcoming MasterNewMedia guide.
Now that I have warned you about the limitations of these free website usability testing tools, here below are the specific selection criteria that I have used to compare these different services:
Does your online business use a disruptive innovation approach? In other words: have you ever considered getting a huge advantage over your competition by developing a business strategy that is a completely different way from what everyone else in your field does?
Photo credit: Kheng Guan Toh
Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the 
Web widgets are tiny applications that allow you to easily distribute your content across other blogs and web sites, free of charge. Web widgets work just like YouTube videos: you can place a widget on your web site and let readers grab the embed code and redistribute your content with a few clicks. In this MasterNewMedia guide you will find the best tools and services to create a widget for 
How do you build a personal brand around yourself? Can one really create a business online simply by sharing her knowledge online?
Photo credit: Robin Good
A couple months ago I was invited by Nokia to join, together with Teemu Arina, a discussion and review session with their online publishing and social media teams focusing on how to improve and steer the future strategy and direction of Nokia online communication strategy.
This 
Although many web publishers consider email newsletters an old-fashioned way to update their readers and customers, in my opinion, email messages remain THE most familiar, intimate, direct and effective way to communicate with anyone you know. As such they represent one of the most powerful means to create and share value online and one of the few effective methods to start the "conversations" we keep hearing more and more about 
How can online journalists improve their design, usability and content creation skills? In this MasterNewMedia report journalist Eric Ulken shares some valuable insights on what online journalists can learn from web interaction designers to improve the way they create, layout and distribute their content.
Photo credit: Taketorise Computer
Usability and design should always be major concerns when you decide to post or share content on the web. But what if you 
Communicating via email in a direct, intimate and informal way remains one of the best ways to market and promote your content, services and products online. This is why the most effective online businesses still rely on crafting quality newsletters and email updates to keep their fans and customers updated, entertained and happy. In this MasterNewMedia guide you will find the best free email newsletter distribution and mailing services available 
What future and opportunities for online news? "After more than five years of Wikipedia building both its content and its brand as a "go-to" source for freshly updated topic-oriented content that dominates search engine results, it dawns on some folks in the news business that perhaps there is a business model in there somewhere."
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Content media expert, and Content Nation author John Blossom, analyzes AP recent moves and where 
To organize, coordinate, promote and manage live events, whether physical or online, there is a new emerging set of web-based event management tools that can truly help and augment your communication and marketing efforts. But how do you choose among all these services which one is best for you? In this MasterNewMedia guide you will find out which are the best web-based event management tools out there and what characterize 
Social television is an emerging new media term used to refer to a new form of television technology that supports and integrates social interaction, recommendations, ratings, reviews and interactive participation among viewers via text chat, audio or even video-conferencing.
Photo credit: Michele Piacquadio
While the social element of TV is not new, the term social TV is relatively new and used to describe a new breed of TV services that integrate other 
If you are interested in learning about new media trends, communication technologies and about the changes that are shaping our future, in this issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education advocate George Siemens, explores and reports on new fascinating stories and insights and on the impact that these new tools have on the way we learn and work.
Photo credit: Zothen
Inside this Media Literacy Digest:
Stages of Social Media Integration - Anytime
Last updated - 21:00 Rome I have been trying to make money with my blog for more than 2 months now. During this period I have realized that there are 5 primary reasons why most people fail to earn any money online. I hope my post will help you to avoid most of these mistakes in ...
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StatusNet, the open-source microblogging service that serves as the foundation for identi.ca, just announced the launch of the public beta of its StatusNet Cloud Service. Thanks to this, you can now easily host your own Twitter-like community for your ...
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When asked the biggest challenges in online video advertising this year, top executives at media agencies like Starcom and MediaVest say they're most eager to target audiences better and to access more sophisticated data around viewership.
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TEKRI is hosting a conference on Making Sense of Social Media in Education, Government, and the Enterprise, April 25-26 in Edmonton. Dave Snowden is our keynote speaker. We are issuing a call for presentations. Deadline is March 21. The conference will ...
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The post-RealDVD world means that unless there's a major change to the law surrounding copy protection, there will never be a legal way to perform legal acts of copying or shifting protected movies, music, and games.
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Harmony is launching free plug-ins that bring Google Docs documents and Microsoft SharePoint document libraries directly to Microsoft Outlook.
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Social media usage has soared not just among the general population but also among at-work Internet users, who are heading to the sites for both personal and professional reasons in greater numbers.
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Secretary Clinton's recent speech on Internet Freedom has signaled a strong interest from the US State Department in promoting the use of the internet to promote political reforms in closed societies. It makes sense that the State Department would ...
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The success of Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader and online e-bookstore has spawned a paid e-publishing content marketplace that has grown rapidly in the past two years and shows no sign of slowing. Competition from other device-makers such as Apple ...
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In the wake of the plagiarism case involving New York Times writer Zachary Kouwe, blame has been placed on the high-speed nature of blogging. But the real issue lies with the paper's failure to understand the culture of the web and the value of the ...
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Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; YouTube; Wordpress: these companies, built from the ground-up, are mainstays in social media. None of them were created by a large tech company, and all but one remains independent. It's an interesting phenomenon, when ...
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Increased use of Twitter has made the users sharing and clicking on links more attractive to both legitimate businesses and ill intended people looking to steal passwords or guide you to unsavory sites. Seemingly each week there are new stories about ...
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We've talked about design a lot recently, highlighting the nuances of thoughtful placement and treatment of various elements of a web page. Today I stumbled onto an interesting blog post by Ryan Spoon of Polaris Venture Partners about how small ...
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While social sites drive an increasing portion of traffic to content publishers, email - the original social network - is responsible for 70 percent of total shares and 48 percent of visits generated by shares, according to data collected by link tracker ...
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Has it ever occurred to you that you may have keywords on your site that are misleading to search engines? Or that you need to take a look at all of the keywords you are trying to rank for, and think about the different meanings and contexts that those ...
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Most search advertisers have no question that testing ads is a good thing, and can lead to much higher performing campaigns. But is it possible to over-test and over-optimize, actually leading to worse results? The answer may surprise you.
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Twitter launched lists in October 2009 and this feature has quickly become an essential part of the Twitter ecosystem. The power of lists isn't just in their ability to organize your followers, they also provide an an insight into how other users use ...
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comScore has just released its US online video rankings for January 2010, and the results aren't positive. Overall views dropped by around 2.5%, with 32.4 billion in January vs. 33.2 billion in December. And Hulu, which celebrated crossing the 1 ...
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BackType, the best comments search engine on the Web, which launched in 2008 and has since morphed to act as a "real-time, conversational" search engine, today announced the introduction of BackType Labs, an "in progress" look at some ...
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At SES Chicago last year, Yahoo VP of Consumer Products, Larry Cornett suggested that blended search results bring businesses a broader range of SEO opportunities, a chance to take control of their brand, and a potential increase in qualified clicks. ...
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