Need help with your web site? Want to learn more about web design and development?
Please note
As the Media Factory merged with Media Centre Lume to become Aalto Studios, the Web Studio will launch a co-working space in Otaniemi in August 2017. See the Aalto Studios site for more details, as they emerge.
The Web Studio is a buffet of personal consultation, study materials and test devices at an actual physical location you can visit, run by two helpful guys, Jon Fabritius and Oliver Manner. We’ve worked and taught at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, and at our own businesses since the days of NCSA Mosaic. We have open doors, free coffee, selected learning materials and a bunch of contemporary devices for testing your web projects on. We provide assistance and organize events to help you learn more.
We welcome anyone at Aalto University doing something on the web, regardless of experience. Students, researchers and staff are all welcome to get feedback and ideas for their projects. Students wanting to learn more about web design and development can freely hang around as much as they want, especially as we have books that are considered essentials available for reading on-site.
Free Consultation
Pop in, grab coffee* and hang out on our sofa. Sound off your ideas, questions, worries and needs- we’re happy to help you out with what we know, and to connect you to greater minds for what we don’t. Contact us to set up a meeting, or drop in if you’re in the neighborhood. Mondays, wednesdays and fridays are your best bet.
Test Devices
Even the simplest designs are hard to get right on all platforms. Does your site work great on an Android tablet? What about the old computer at the library running Windows XP and IE 6? Ubuntu? Can Windows Phone users use your new shiny web thingy?
If you don’t know, you test. And that’s why we have a selection of these platforms at hand. Phones, tablets and different vintages of desktop operating systems in convenient spot. Book a time, bring your (small) team and hunker down for a few hours to test and tweak.
We keep a keen eye on new gadgets, but usually go for devices which have proven themselves in the marketplace to some extent. And we are about to refresh our aging selection with a few new models, so feel free to suggest an addition.
Events
Every once in a while we spend some quality monday evening time showing new things, teaching old tricks or inviting interesting speakers to share their stuff. Right now we’re running a series called Web Essentials, for people with 0 to some knowledge of the Web.
Great Books and a Reading Spot
We have a bookshelf full of books on user experience, interaction design, information design, web development and related things. They never leave the Media Factory, so they’re always there for you- we’ve set up a nice, hidden reading spot for your reading pleasure and you’re invited.
Smashing Book 2
by Smashing Magazine
The Design of Everyday Things
by Donald Norman
Don’t Make Me Think
by Steve Krug
The Elements of User Experience
by Jesse James Garrett
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
by Steve Krug
User Interface Design for Programmers
by Joel Spolsky
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
by Jenifer Tidwell
The Nature & Art of Workmanship
by David Pye
Designing for the Digital Age
by Kim Goodwin
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
by Alan Cooper
About Face 3
by Alan Cooper
The Smashing Book
by Smashing Magazine
Sketching User Experiences
by Bill Buxton
Envisioning Information
by Edward Tufte
The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Vol. 2 by Patrick McNeil
by Patrick McNeil
Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions
by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, 2nd Edition
by Jason Beaird
Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks
by Luke Wroblewski
Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design
by Dan Cederholm and Ethan Marcotte
Responsive Web Design
by Ethan Marcotte
HTML5 for web designers
by Jeremy Keith
CSS3 for web designers
by Dan Cederholm
Designing for the Social Web
by Joshua Porter
Designing with the Mind in Mind
by Jeff Johnson
On the shopping list
Feel free to recommend additions
Hardboiled Web Design
by Andy Clarke
Why?
We’re in awe of the great studios at the School of Art and Design. The wood, metal, plastic, textile, glass, ceramic, film, TV, sound, theatre and other studios have excelled in combining great personal tutoring with great resources, to teach people about materials.
Today, software is the central raw material of everyday products, and we often see people come up with cool ideas and concepts, but then stall when things get more technical, or challenging to design. To overcome that, we want to provide a warm, cozy context to help push web projects forward, by doing what we can, and then connecting you to people wiser than us. At the same time, we get to learn and stay up-to-date ourselves, in a rapidly evolving world.