Random Order Generator

What is the Random Order Generator?

The Random Order Generator answers a narrower question than a name picker: not “who is chosen” but “in what order does everyone go”. It shuffles the whole list at once and numbers the result, so you can read it out, print it, or paste it into an agenda.

Because every possible ordering is equally likely, it is a genuinely fair way to allocate slots — including the ones nobody wants, like presenting immediately after lunch.

How to use it

1. Paste your list, one item per line, or load one of the starter lists.
2. Add a title if you plan to print it.
3. Press “Shuffle into a random order”.
4. Copy, download or print the numbered order.
5. Shuffle again as many times as you like — each shuffle is independent.

How the random selection works

This is a textbook Fisher-Yates shuffle. Walking backwards through the list, each position is swapped with a uniformly chosen position at or before it, using rejection-sampled integers from crypto.getRandomValues(). Done this way, all n! orderings are exactly equally likely — unlike the common mistake of sorting by a random comparator, which produces a measurably biased order.

The full algorithm — including the rejection-sampling step and the wheel stop-angle calculation — is written out on the methodology page.

Practical examples

• Setting the order for twelve student presentations.
• Deciding the running order for a set of lightning talks.
• Randomising the order of matches in a friendly tournament.
• Shuffling a task list so the boring items are not always last.
• Randomising the order in which reviewers see submissions to reduce order bias.

Available options

• Starter lists for presentations, matches and tasks.
• Show or hide position numbers.
• Title field for printouts.
• Copy, CSV download and print.
• Session history of previous orders.

Privacy

Lists of people are common here, so nothing is uploaded. Everything you type stays in this browser tab. There is no account, no upload step and no server-side copy of your list: the draw runs in JavaScript on your own device. Nothing is written to browser storage unless you explicitly save a list or tick the option to keep your draw history, and both can be cleared at any time from the privacy page.

Full details are in the privacy policy, which also has a button that deletes everything this site has stored in your browser.

Fairness and limitations

A Fisher-Yates shuffle over a uniform random source gives every ordering exactly the same probability, which is as fair as ordering gets. What it does not do is even out across repeated shuffles: if you shuffle three times, someone can be first twice. If you want guaranteed coverage across rounds, use the Student Picker’s no-repeat mode instead.