by OtakuMZ - 8 years ago     show comments

Kevin Granger, the developer of Searchstone.io, was kind enough to spare some time to talk with me about his new Hearthstone search engine. As I already mentioned in my part II of the “Apps and Resources (…)” article , I totally switched to this neat tool to gather my Initial data for my infographic. It is simply more responding and acessible than the in-game card browser.

Without futher ado, let’s head to the transcript of our short interview!

Kevin Granger

First, tell us something about you. What do you do for a living?

What is your connection to Hearthstone and what drove you to write searchstone.io?

First, thank you for this interview and for talking about Searchstone on BlizzPro.

I’m designer at Algolia, we provide a Search API. It’s a service that allows every website to implement a Google/Amazon like search experience. Like everyone, I’m deeply affected by my work and it’s painful to see the challenges some sites have, so I wanted to provide something to benefit the community and share it.

What sets your tool apart from other card browsing web services?

The user experience (UX) is exceptional.  The goal was to achieve a smooth and really fast experience. Also, I’ve identified some opportunities, such as internationalisation and some issues with the interface. There’s an article on Medium full of details about the making of and the personal motivations.

What do we have to expect regarding further development or additional features of Searchstone?

Yes, quite a few players have discovered the project and indicated that having a deck builder would be incredibly useful. Luckily, some of the same players are talented developers and designers who have proposed teaming up to create the deck builder! It will be awesome.

Where can people stay in contact with you and get information about your project and Searchstone in particular?

You can ping me on twitter @kevin_granger! I answer to everyone!

Do you have any shoutouts?

Yes, of course, I want to thank my girlfriend to support me spending all my spare time on this project. I want to thanks the guys at Blizzard for the encouragement. And of course, everyone that provided invaluable feedback to improve searchstone.io and helped to find and fix bugs.

Full view of card details (Japanese)

Working on all devices: mobile, tablet and desktop.

I thank Kevin again for taking the time to talk with me, it was a real pleasure. I encourage all of you to check searchstone.io out!

Good luck, praise Yogg and have fun!