Here's the whole thing, start to finish — no code, no developer, about twenty minutes. We're going to build a calculator that lets a reader type in their home's value and instantly see what a proposed levy would cost them, per year and per month. Every small paper covers levies; almost none give readers a way to see what it means for their own wallet. This does.
Step 1: Open Claude and describe what you want — in plain English
Go to claude.ai. In the message box, describe the tool exactly the way you'd explain it to a coworker. For example:
"Build me a simple, mobile-friendly calculator for a newspaper article. The reader types in their home's assessed value, and it shows what a proposed school levy of $1.20 per $1,000 of assessed value would cost them per year and per month. Put the headline 'What the School Levy Would Cost You' at the top, and keep it clean and easy to read."
Swap in your actual levy rate and headline. That's the whole instruction — plain sentences, no technical anything.
Step 2: Watch Claude build it
A panel opens on the right side of your screen, and Claude builds the calculator right in front of you — a working tool, not a description of one. That panel is the "artifact." Type a test home value into it and watch it calculate.
Step 3: Refine it by asking
Don't like something? Just say so, in plain English:
- "Make the result text bigger."
- "Also show the total cost over the ten-year life of the levy."
- "Add one sentence explaining what the money pays for."
Claude rebuilds it on the spot. Go back and forth until it's exactly what you want.
Step 4: Check the math — this is the non-negotiable step
This will be public, with your paper's name on it, telling people what their taxes will be. Before you share it, run three or four real home values through it by hand and confirm the numbers match. AI gets arithmetic wrong sometimes, and a wrong tax figure damages trust fast. Verify first, every time. This is the one step you cannot skip.
Step 5: Publish it and get a shareable link
Click the Publish (or Share) button on the artifact. Claude gives you a public web link anyone can open — your readers don't need a Claude account or any login to use it.
Step 6: Put it in front of readers — two ways
You've got two options here. The first is dead simple; the second keeps readers on your own site.
Option A — share the link (simplest). Take the published link and drop it wherever your readers are: in your levy story ("See what it would cost your household →"), on Facebook, in your newsletter.
One tidy-up worth 30 seconds: the link Claude gives you is long and ugly. Run it through a free shortener like Bitly (bitly.com) or TinyURL (tinyurl.com) — paste the long link in, get back a short, clean one like bit.ly/windom-levy. Short links look better in print, are easy to say on the radio, and (with Bitly) even tell you how many people clicked.
Option B — embed it right in your article (keeps readers on your site). Even better: instead of sending readers away to another page, you can drop the calculator directly inside your story so they use it without ever leaving. After you publish, click the "Get embed code" button on the artifact. Claude gives you a short snippet of code to paste into your article.
Two things to know so it actually shows up:
- Claude will ask for your "allowed domains" — that's just your website address (e.g.,
windomnews.com). Type it in, or the embed will show up blank on your site. This is the one step people miss.
- Paste the snippet into your article using your website's "custom HTML" or "embed" block (every modern site builder — WordPress, Squarespace, and the rest — has one). If you're not sure where that is, whoever manages your website will know in two seconds.
Embedded, the calculator becomes part of your article — readers use it on your page, you keep the traffic. That's the version worth doing once you've got the hang of it.
That's the whole thing — a genuinely useful, interactive piece of service journalism, built in an afternoon, with no developer and no budget.
A few honest cautions
- Verify every calculation before publishing (Step 4 — it matters most of all).
- The published link is public, so never build anything containing private or sensitive data.
- Claude Pro ($20/month) makes this smoother, though the free plan can do it with tighter daily limits.
Other simple tools you could build the same way
Once you've done one, the pattern is obvious — describe it, let Claude build it, check it, publish the link. A few more a newsroom could ship in an afternoon:
- A side-by-side comparison of where local election candidates stand on the issues.
- A "look up your sample ballot or polling place" tool.
- A searchable, sortable table of county or school-district salaries.
- A quick quiz tied to a feature story ("How well do you know your town's history?").
Same move every time. The thing that used to require hiring a developer is now a clear description and twenty minutes.
