Claris
Two partner properties, one deadline — hand-built clean HTML that got them live.
Claris — then FileMaker, the Apple subsidiary behind the app-building platform — was standing up two partner-facing web properties at once: the Business Alliance and the Technical Network. Two audiences, two properties, one deadline. I owned the production layer that got both live.
For a partner program, the website is the credibility.
These weren’t splash pages — they were the front doors to the developer and business-partner ecosystems, where consultants, resellers, and developers came to join the programs and find resources. If the pages felt broken or sloppy, so did the program behind them. And because this was an Apple subsidiary, the bar for polish was not negotiable.
The commercial side of the partner network.
The developers building on top of the platform.
“Clean” was the operative word — and I took it seriously.
I built the pages by hand — structured, readable HTML rather than the tangle visual editors spat out in that era — styled with CSS, with JavaScript for the interactive bits, so the pages were maintainable by whoever inherited them and behaved predictably across the browsers of the day.
Consistency as a decision
Two audiences, but one family — shared structure and conventions underneath, even where the content diverged, so the properties felt related.
Carry patterns across
Building both in parallel meant I could carry patterns from one to the other instead of solving the same problem twice.
Close the words-code gap
I partnered with the copy editor as the pages were built — so mislabeled links and copy that broke the layout got caught before launch, not after.
On a launch, “just production” is where quality is either protected or lost.
Both properties shipped, cross-browser, on the timeline the launch required. The value I added wasn’t only writing markup — it was treating clean, standards-based HTML and a close read of the copy as the last line of defense before two partner audiences formed their first impression. Sweat the production layer, unify what belongs together, own quality end to end — instincts that carried straight into the more complex design work that followed.
Early-career production work: no launch or adoption metrics were captured, so I don’t quote any.