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Decide Now! Random Wheel for iOS Review

Product: Decide Now! Random Wheel

Producer: Catforce Studio

Compatibility: iOS

Price: $2.79

Product Summary

Decide Now! is a choice-making app produced by Catforce Studios available for iOS only. The app functions as a single-screen spinning choice wheel that selects an item at random from a setlist when the user presses a central control button. Wheels can be edited and saved for future use, with unlimited wheels and fully customizable lists.

Highlights

  • Intuitive design and easy set-up for users, with the ability to import choices as lists;
  • Single screen display with pop-up menu allows for quick, on-the-go edits;
  • Able to add a visual cue using emojis;
  • Choices may be deactivated after selection to ensure a new choice is chosen on every spin.

Lowlights

  • Selections are visual only, not possible to speak selection using app or iPad accessibility settings;
  • Central control button activates on each touch input making it difficult to prevent unintended successive spins and stimming behaviour;
  • Not suitable for users with visual impairments.

Ratings:

Ease of Use: Grab & Go ★★★★★

Adaptability: Wide Variety of Settings Available ★★★★☆

Accessibility: Suitable For Most Users ★★☆☆

Cost vs. Value: Worthwhile Expense ★★★

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

Final Word:

Decide Now! was intended for use by all and, as a result, does not have any built-in functions specifically geared towards supporting those with disabilities. This quality is a double-edged sword: on one hand, limiting the ability to completely personalize the settings for individuals with complex needs, and on the other, giving support workers an extremely simple interface that requires only a little creativity for use. Though this app has a wide variety of potential uses, as a support tool it is a unique option for individuals with impairments in choice-making skills and for task-completion of less preferred activities.

By randomizing each choice, Decide Now! allows users who struggle with decision-making to move directly to the activity or option while bypassing the anxiety of actually making the decision. The key to using this app for choice-making is the deactivation feature. Decide Now! should not replace decision-making, but rather be used with the intent of removing barriers to choice while still giving users the option of declining the randomized suggestion. Using the deactivation button, support workers can eliminate a specific item and allow the user the re-spin for another option. This ensures users remain active participants in decision-making and reframes choice as a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ rather than requiring a section from a multi-item field. Continuous use of a single wheel promotes user familiarity of options and may decrease choice-making anxiety overall.

A similar impact can be observed when used as a task-completion tool for less-preferred activities. For individuals who may struggle with maintaining motivation when completing a series of small tasks within a single activity, Decide Now! is a unique alternative to more traditional visual schedules or step-by-step task breakdowns. Not only is this app more appealing to users both visually and through the interactive experience it offers, for activities that do not require tasks to be completed in a specific order, fun or preferred choices can be interspersed within the tasks required for completion, presenting what may have originally been a chore list now as a series of options on a game show wheel. Using the deactivation feature, support workers can ensure that each task is only presented once and gives the user a visual reference for how many steps remain in an activity, as the app greys out each item once deactivated.

Regardless of the purposes for which this app is used, Decide Now! strongly relies on support worker creativity for meaningful use. The limitations of this app are outweighed by its ease of use, quick adaptability, and level of customization. When reviewed strictly for basic use, this is an inexpensive tool for support workers that can be applied to a variety of different situations; but when considered as an alternative strategy-on-hand when traditional methods are unsuccessful, it is the potential for positive impact that makes Decide Now! a highly suggested app for purchase.