I have been working on a small website called WheelPage lately.
It is not a big product. It is mostly a collection of simple random tools:
- a spinner
- a 3D dice roller
- a coin flipper
At first, I thought this would be easy.
A spinner picks one item from a list. A dice roller returns a random number. A coin flip gives you heads or tails.
The logic is simple.
But once I started building it, I kept getting stuck on small decisions.
Not the technical parts. Those were manageable.
The harder questions were more like this:
- Should this button be visible by default?
- Is this animation actually useful?
- Will this feature make the page feel crowded?
- If I do not add it, will the tool feel unfinished?
None of these questions were difficult alone.
But they kept coming back.
That was the part I did not expect.
The dice roller was the first problem
The simplest dice roller is easy to build.
Add a button. Click it. Show a random number from 1 to 6.
The feature works.
But when I looked at that version, it felt wrong.
It was random, but it did not feel like rolling a die. It felt more like a random number generator.
A real die has a tiny physical process. It moves, tumbles, and settles. That moment is short, but it changes how the result feels.
So I turned it into a 3D dice roller.
Then another problem appeared.
If the animation was too short, it felt fake. If the animation was too long, it became annoying.
I clicked the same button again and again, trying to find a timing that felt natural.
At some point, I realized I was not really tuning an animation.
I was trying to define the boundary of a small tool.
It should feel like a die, but it should not make the user wait just to make the interaction feel more realistic.
Features are easy to add
While working on the dice roller, I started thinking of more features.
- multiple dice
- roll history
- sound effects
- D20 and other tabletop dice
- custom colors
- copy result
Every idea made sense.
A D20 is useful for tabletop games. Multiple dice are useful in some cases. Roll history can help if someone rolls several times.
But most people do not open a dice roller to explore features.
They open it because they need a die now.
Maybe they are playing a board game and forgot to bring one. Maybe they just need a quick random result.
They do not want to study a dice tool.
They want to roll.
That changed how I thought about the page.
A feature can be useful by itself, but still become a burden when placed next to everything else.
With small tools, knowing when to stop is often harder than knowing how to build.
The spinner needed a different approach
The spinner is different from the dice roller.
It is heavier by nature because users need to provide their own options.
People might use it for things like:
- deciding what to eat
- picking a name in class
- choosing a task
- running a small giveaway
So features like editing, sorting, shuffling, and saving history make more sense here.
But the main flow still has to stay clear:
- Where do I type?
- How do I spin?
- Where is the result?
Everything else can exist, but it should not block those three steps.
This was a useful reminder for me.
Just because a feature is available does not mean it should be visually important.
The coin flipper should stay light
The coin flipper is the opposite.
It exists for a simple fifty-fifty moment.
Two options both seem fine. You just want to stop thinking about it and let the coin decide.
That kind of tool does not need many rules. It does not need many buttons.
It just needs to flip.
I still added a small flipping motion because without it, the result felt too sudden. But I do not want to make it much more complicated than that.
The simpler the tool is, the more obvious every extra piece becomes.
One unnecessary button can make the whole thing feel worse.
I am learning to accept short sessions
I used to think a website should make people stay longer.
More page views. More clicks. More reasons to come back.
Those things can matter.
But for tools like a spinner, a die, or a coin, a short session is normal.
Someone opens the page. They click once. They get a result. They leave.
That is not a failure.
For this kind of tool, it might be the right behavior.
If it does not make the user think too much, wait too long, or feel interrupted, it has done its job.
Some tools are better when they stay out of the way.
Current state
Right now, WheelPage is still small.
The data is not dramatic. Bing has started bringing in some impressions and clicks. Google is moving slower, which is not surprising for a new site.
I am not rushing to add more features yet.
Most of my time is going into small details:
- Can the main button be reached comfortably on mobile?
- Can the page load a little faster?
- Does the animation feel natural?
- Does the result appear clearly?
- Do the English and Chinese versions sound natural?
These things are boring, but they matter.
A small tool does not have much room to explain itself. The first few seconds matter a lot.
For now, the tools are here:
- Spinner: Spin the Wheel
- 3D Dice Roller: Dice Roller
- Coin Flipper: Flip a Coin
I am still adjusting them slowly, mostly around speed, clarity, mobile comfort, and language.
What I learned
Before building these tools, I thought small tools were simple.
Now I think they test a different kind of discipline.
The smaller the tool is, the more careful each decision becomes.
A large product can hide some rough edges behind more features. A tiny tool cannot. If the main action feels wrong, the whole tool feels wrong.
So my goal for WheelPage has become simpler.
It does not need to be big. It does not need to be loud. It does not need to make people stay longer than necessary.
If someone opens it when they need a quick decision, uses it smoothly, and leaves without feeling bothered, that is enough.
Small tools can be small.
But they still deserve care.
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