With the rapid increasing of the available number of novel porous materials, a straightforward and low-cost testing methodology to assess those suitable for near ambient temperature hydrogen storage applications is needed. In this work, we developed a new assessment methodology to quickly identify those porous materials potentially suitable for near ambient temperature hydrogen storage applications. We introduced the usable capacity map showing why the absolute adsorption capacity at the temperature of 77 K is not a good indicator to compare the material's storage performance. In fact, some porous material that shows low usable capacity at 77 K appear to be better adsorbent at a higher temperature. Moreover, we demonstrated that using quick cyclic adsorption isotherm or TDS is possible to easily individuate those materials that are the most suitable for near ambient temperature applications. Therefore, as a general result, we showed that among the three commercial activated carbon, used here as case study, the one with the higher content of ultramicroporosity is the most promising because the optimum operating temperature shifts towards ambient temperature. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.