We create online places for communities.
Our holistic approach entails design, development and strategy for the conversion of 'space' to 'place;' where people become personally engaged with interfaces and each other through them - a process entailing constant exploration of new technologies and techniques.
In the world's largest social space, it is important to be able to articulate using a variety of media with an understanding of cutting edge technologies, tools and platforms. The Design Guru approach entails a commitment to leveraging the flexible scalability of Open Source Software (like OpenX, Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla) using seamless practices for social network integration and streaming media.
Our project incubator has supported Open Source communities for Joomla and Drupal with job boards, packaged software distributions and aggregated news services, whilst our Why Drupal blog offers insights we gain along the way.
Also, we’ve allowed creatives from all disciplines around the world to publish their portfolios online through our free introduction.io hosted service and use video to relate a larger impression of the evolving media industry through our designguru.tv series.
Our Services:
Though not exhaustive, the following list relates some core competencies we bring to our work:
Project Ideation
- Information Gathering.
- Stakeholder Analysis.
- Product Strategy.
- Competitive Analysis.
User Interface Design
- Illustration/Icon Design.
- Web (integrated design for all stakeholders - from anonymous users to administration, providing cohesive experiences with contextual interfacing.)
- Mobile (for web apps as well as native-OS apps.)
User Interface Testing
- Custom testing methodology & use-case definition.
- Observational analysis (controlled environment testing.)
- Reporting analysis.
Digital Marketing
- Campaign ideation/strategy.
- Custom ad server implementation (using OpenX.)
Web Application Development
- Prototyping (proof-of-concept interactive apps - from hand-coded HTML/Javascript to database-driven applications.)
- CMS-driven custom publishing applications (using Open Source software including Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla.)
Mobile Application Development
- Web application prototyping and development (using HTML5 with javascript frameworks such as Jquery Mobile and Phone Gap to deliver cross-platform web apps.)
- Native OS application prototyping and development (iOs, Android, Blackberry etc...)
Drupal contributions
Our work involves developing highly usable interfaces online and we do not develop custom Drupal modules - this means that when we take on development tasks we usually try to best leverage the power of contributed modules already available through drupal.org and we typically document our experience with tips for the community through our blog at http://designguru.org/whydrupal as well as posting in module issue queues (with solutions to problems where available) and case studies, such as for CalArts.