Janiré Castillo built Marqo with Claude Code. It's her sixth iPhone app.
Allison Esposito Medina, Founder, Willa · Published October 28, 2026
A solo designer in Maryland kept losing the reasons behind client decisions, so she built an app for it and shipped it to the App Store.
Janiré Castillo has spent more than 20 years as a product designer and UX strategist, including product and UX work at AAMC, FiscalNote and Indivisible. Today she runs Articulate Digital, a one-person studio in Maryland that builds websites and apps for solo professionals and small service businesses.
Marqo came out of a problem she kept running into with her own clients. "As a freelancer, I'd agree on a direction with a client, then change course a few weeks later for a good reason," she says. The reason made sense at the time. A few weeks later, nobody could remember it. "So I built Marqo."
What it does
Marqo is a decision log for client work. Each entry records what changed, why, and what it affects, if anything: budget, timeline or scope. When a client asks why the project went a certain way, you export a read-only log they can open in a browser without making an account. Your decisions are stored on your iPhone.
It went live on the App Store on September 14, and she hasn't stopped shipping since. There was a 1.1 in early October, then an accessibility pass with VoiceOver navigation and clearer screen and button names, then a security fix, and most recently a change that lets new users log their first three decisions free before they subscribe.
Built with Claude Code
Janiré built Marqo with Claude Code. When she talks about it, the focus is on how the app was checked before it shipped, and on the way she runs her studio: one designer using AI tools to design, build and ship client sites and iPhone apps, with her own judgment making the final call.
You can see that checking in the details. Her studio audits every site and app to WCAG 2.1 AA for core flows before launch, and she's spoken about the things automated accessibility checks miss, like menus and pop-ups.
Six apps and counting
Marqo is one of six iOS apps she's built and shipped. The others are StreakFocus, a focus app that caps your day at three tasks; Survival Budget, a tier-based budgeting app; Knit, a contacts tool that finds duplicates and lets you review each match before merging; Jotting Journal, a PIN-protected diary for kids; and Demure, a private library that shows a discreet cover for each book you're reading, then opens Apple Books or Kindle. They're her own products, not client work.
In October she took Marqo to UXCON in Silver Spring and set up a demo table so product designers could try it for themselves. That same day, UX University gave her its Leadership Award.
Get Marqo on the App Store, and see the rest of her work at Articulate Digital.
Tools used
- Claude Code
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