The Randomiser lets you draw straws, 21st century style

The Randomiser is a one-trick pony, but it's an extremely fetching one. You get a huge, chunky text box on a dark background, where you enter a list of items (comma separated). Then, you hit Enter, and Randomiser chooses one item and tells you what it is.

It's as simple as that, really. The Randomiser beautifully designed, fast, and it works. If it only had a high-profile domain name, it's the type of thing that could become a widely-recognized utility. "Drawing straws" is one of the few remaining things Google doesn't do with its search box (yet?), and it's something just about everyone needs from time to time.

Randomiser presents a couple of tabs at the bottom: one is a simple suggestions tab (to give you some ideas for things you can "Randomise"), and one is "Recently Randomised," which actually gives you a nice, large ... error message.

Still, if it ever gets fixed this option introduces an interesting twist. On the one hand, what you enter won't be private (somewhat of a downer). On the other hand, you can look at what other (random) people are entering, which could be interesting.

Next time you're deliberating over what you should get for lunch, give Randomiser a shot. The authoritative manner in which it presents the selected answer is very convincing. One might even call it commanding.

Tags: beautiful, design, random, selection, simplicity