I Built a Tiny Decision Tool for People Who Overthink Small Choices

Sometimes the hardest decisions are not the important ones.

They are things like:

• Should I order takeout?
• Should I go for a walk?
• Should I text them?
• Should I start working now?
• Should I buy another coffee?

None of these decisions deserves a spreadsheet, a productivity framework, or a 30-minute discussion with an AI assistant.

But somehow, we still get stuck.

So I built Tiny Fate Toolbox, a small collection of playful tools for everyday decisions.

The first tool is a simple Yes or No Wheel.

You think of a question, spin the wheel, and it lands on YES or NO.

That is basically it.

The goal was not to make decisions for people

A random wheel obviously does not know which choice is best.

It cannot predict the future, understand your relationships, or decide whether you should change jobs.

What it can do is interrupt an overthinking loop.

There is also a small psychological trick hidden inside the experience.

Imagine asking:

Should I go out tonight?

The wheel lands on YES.

Perhaps you immediately feel tired and wish it had landed on NO.

That reaction may be more useful than the result itself. The wheel did not discover the answer. It helped you notice the answer you were already hoping for.

That became the main idea behind the product:

The random answer starts the reaction. Your reaction helps reveal your preference.

Keeping the interaction deliberately simple

My first design rule was to remove unnecessary steps.

You can type a question, but you do not have to. You can keep it completely private, think about it for a moment, and press Spin.

The wheel has two YES sections and two NO sections, giving both answers an equal chance.

I also wanted the animation to feel playful without making the user wait forever. Many wheel tools turn a tiny interaction into a miniature casino experience, with long animations, loud effects, pop-ups, and confetti everywhere.

For this project, the interaction needed to feel lighter:

1. Ask one clear question.
2. Spin once.
3. See the result.
4. Notice your first reaction.

No account is required, and recent results can remain locally on the current device rather than being attached to a user profile.

Randomness is more confusing than it looks

Building a random wheel also reminded me that people have strong expectations about what “random” should look like.

For example, a user might spin the wheel five times and receive:

YES
YES
YES
NO
YES

It is easy to look at that sequence and assume something is wrong.

But fair randomness does not promise that results will alternate neatly. A 50/50 process can still produce several identical results in a row.

The browser generates a fresh random value for each spin. That value determines the selected result, and the animation then lands on the corresponding section.

Previous spins do not make the next YES or NO more likely.

I added guides explaining this process because transparency felt more useful than simply writing “100% random” in large marketing text.

A simple tool can still explain how it works.

Expanding beyond YES or NO

A binary answer works well for some decisions, but not every decision has only two options.

So Tiny Fate Toolbox is growing into a small set of focused tools:

Custom Wheel

Create a wheel with several choices, such as:

• Pizza
• Tacos
• Pasta
• Sushi

It is useful when the options matter more than YES or NO.

Random Name Picker

Choose someone from a class, team, giveaway, meeting, or group of friends.

The goal is to make the selection visible and easy to understand rather than returning a mysterious name from a black box.

Weighted Wheel

Sometimes choices should not have equal probabilities.

Perhaps tonight’s options are:

• Go for a walk: 60%
• Watch a movie: 30%
• Take a nap: 10%

A weighted wheel lets the user represent that preference while still leaving the final result to chance.

Designing for harmless decisions

One important part of the project was deciding what the tool should not encourage.

A random wheel is fine for choosing dinner, selecting a game, breaking a friendly tie, or escaping a low-stakes overthinking loop.

It should not be used for:

• Medical treatment
• Financial investments
• Legal decisions
• Personal safety
• Emergencies
• Serious choices affecting another person

This might seem obvious, but product copy shapes how a tool is used.

I did not want to present randomness as wisdom or package a spinner as an artificial fortune teller. The product is intentionally framed as entertainment and a playful decision prompt.

For important decisions, the boring answer is still the correct one: gather information, think carefully, and speak to someone qualified when necessary.

Small tools can still deserve thoughtful design

Tiny web tools are easy to underestimate.

The core feature might take only a few seconds to understand, but the surrounding details still matter:

• Does it work well on mobile?
• Is the main interaction immediately visible?
• Does the animation match the result?
• Can users understand the probability?
• Is the interface usable without creating an account?
• Does the page explain when the tool is useful?
• Does it avoid pretending to solve problems it cannot solve?

A product does not need hundreds of features to be useful.

Sometimes it only needs to do one small thing clearly, quickly, and pleasantly.

Try it

You can try the project here:

👉 Tiny Fate Toolbox — Yes or No Wheel

Ask it something harmless, spin once, and pay attention to your reaction.

And yes, repeatedly spinning until you get the answer you wanted is also an answer.

---

Suggested DEV Community tags: webdev, javascript, indiehackers, productivity