Scenarios at Join — Ari Zilnik

Join is project management for the people who build actual buildings. As Head of Design, I lead a small team and ship product across the platform.

Scenarios is a side-by-side comparison view for construction project decisions. A contractor doesn’t decide “which countertop” in isolation. They decide “which finish package for kitchens and bathrooms” against budget and schedule. Before Scenarios, Join asked users to think one decision at a time, which didn’t match how real decisions got made.

The reframe was simple: model decisions as sets of linked choices, not as individual line items. Owners weigh whole packages against each other, not forty separate trade-offs.

Sets of decisions as the unit

A contractor models a “premium finishes, compressed schedule” option alongside a “standard finishes, stretched schedule” option, and the math propagates across every connected line item automatically. The owner sees two packages, not forty decisions.

Join Scenarios overview listing two alternative versions of a construction project

Pricing flow inside Scenarios showing cost propagation across linked line items — Cost propagation across linked line items.

Tabular comparison without ranking

This was the hardest design call. Sophisticated owners on multi-million-dollar projects don’t want to be steered toward a “best” option. They want to weigh the dimensions that matter to them. The comparison is deliberately flat. It surfaces every trade-off without marking any option as preferred.

Scenarios comparison view showing two packaged project options side-by-side with their cost and schedule trade-offs

Interactive prototype of Scenarios comparing two bundled options with live trade-off calculations — Two bundled options compared side-by-side with cost and schedule trade-offs visible at a glance.

Progressive disclosure

The default comparison view is lean on purpose. Users click into specific dimensions for detail. The owner-facing read stays calm during a sign-off meeting. The contractor-facing detail stays rich for internal work.

Scenarios decision workflow showing a contractor preparing options for an owner sign-off meeting

Collaboration features inside Scenarios showing comments and sign-off rituals — Collaboration around scenario sign-off.

Results

The scenario-decision cycle dropped 50%, measured from creation through owner sign-off. The surprise was the architect audience. 20% of Scenarios users were architects, a segment Join hadn’t been designing for. The comparison view matched how they presented design options to their own clients, and they found the feature on their own. That discovery reshaped how Join thought about the product’s reach.

“This is like a happy meal for decision making. Everything you need, all in one place.”

“We used Scenarios on a $150M job and it cut our decision timeline in half.”

Credits

Design: Ari Zilnik

Product: Steve Matthews

Engineering: Dan Anthony

Engineering: Mark Deutsch

Shipped at Join, 2024.