Workplace change · Reflection

Waterline

A private reflection tool for people dealing with organisational change. It helps separate what they can act on from what the system has quietly made theirs.

ConceptExercise architectureUX & contentAI-assisted build
Waterline landing screen, showing an abstract blue underwater landscape

From pilot to rollout

The first signal was unusually clear.

The pilot feedback has been unusually consistent: every respondent said the experience helped them see something differently, and every respondent said they would use it again.

People also saw practical uses in team conversations and Mental Health First Aider support. The criticism was useful too: it sharpened the sequencing, instructions and route from reflection into action.

Waterline now has the backing of the HR and wellness teams and is set to roll out. The point was never to produce a polished concept. It was to make something the organisation would choose to use.

UnanimousSaid it helped them see something differently
UnanimousSaid they would use it again
NextBacked by HR and wellness for rollout

The design question

What happens when the system’s problem starts to feel like yours?

An HR VP and director asked whether AI could help people dealing with burnout and organisational change. I could have written a proposal. I built Waterline instead.

Waterline does not diagnose, score or prescribe. It gives people structured ways to get what they are carrying out of their head, test the assumptions around it and notice patterns that are otherwise difficult to see.

I developed the concept, wrote the content and designed the exercise logic and interaction. AI-assisted development turned that into a working product I could put in front of real people and improve from their response.

PrivateReflection stays with the participant
Non-clinicalA workplace tool, not a diagnostic instrument
ReflectiveInsight emerges from the person’s own material

Experience design

The interface goes down before it comes back up.

The design follows the argument. It begins in deep water, makes the work visible one fragment at a time, then brings the user back towards the light with a clearer picture of what they are carrying.

The Weight of It capture screen with reflective prompts and cream thought bubbles
Capture: get everything out before trying to organise it.
The Weight of It sorting screen with fragments placed into ownership zones
Sort: test each fragment against a short sequence of practical questions.
The Weight of It reveal screen showing how much belongs to the system
Reveal: turn the sorting into a pattern the person can recognise and use.

Working recreation

Try The Weight of It

This is a deliberately condensed reconstruction of one Waterline exercise. The full application develops the journey and interpretation further. Add a few real or invented pressures, make an initial judgement, then sort them and see what changes. Everything happens in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

The Weight of It

A short reflection on what you’re carrying.

When you’re ready, begin with a few of the things currently taking up space.

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