Color Hue Test
Arrange colors by hue order
The Color Hue Test challenges you to arrange colored tiles in the correct order of hue transition. Based on the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test used by graphic designers and quality control professionals, it measures the fineness of your color discrimination ability.
How to Use
- 1Drag and arrange the colored tiles between the fixed anchor colors
- 2Order them so the transition from one anchor color to the other is smooth and gradual
- 3Submit when you are satisfied with your arrangement
- 4A lower error score means better hue discrimination
Three Cones, Millions of Colors
Everything you see in color comes from just three cone cell types in your retina, tuned roughly to long, medium, and short wavelengths. Your brain reads the ratio between their signals: a certain mix fires "teal," a slightly different mix fires "cyan." Hue discrimination is how reliably you can tell two nearly identical ratios apart.
This varies person to person far more than people expect, even among those with completely normal color vision. Genetics sets each cone's exact tuning, and small shifts in one cone's sensitivity compress whole regions of the color wheel. A high error score concentrated in one color zone often maps directly to which cone is shifted.
Check Your Screen Before You Blame Your Eyes
On this test, your monitor is part of the experiment. A display running a night-mode filter warms every tile toward orange and wrecks blue-region discrimination. Aggressive brightness lowering crushes the subtle steps between adjacent tiles. Cheap panels with narrow color gamuts physically cannot show some of the differences the test asks about.
Before judging your result, switch off blue light filters, set brightness to a comfortable mid-high level, and avoid direct sunlight glare on the screen. If you score poorly, retest on another device. A real discrimination issue follows you across screens; a display issue stays on one.
What is a Good Score?
A perfect score (0 errors) is exceptional. Scores under 20 indicate excellent color discrimination. The average person scores 50–100. Scores above 200 suggest notable difficulty with fine hue distinctions.
Tips to Improve
- →Take the test in daylight or daylight-balanced lighting — warm-toned lights distort color perception
- →Rest your eyes for a few minutes before testing — fatigue reduces color discrimination by up to 30%
- →Calibrate your monitor to standard D65 white point for the most accurate color rendering
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good score on the color hue test?
A score of 0 is perfect. Under 20 is excellent. 20–100 is average. Above 100 suggests difficulty with fine hue discrimination. Graphic designers typically score under 20.
Who uses the Farnsworth-Munsell hue test professionally?
Textile color graders, paint manufacturers, automotive paint inspectors, cinematographers, and anyone working in color-critical production use variants of this test to screen employees.
Do women have better color discrimination than men?
On average, yes. Women have statistically better fine hue discrimination than men, particularly in the red-green spectrum. This is partly because a small percentage of women carry four types of color-detecting cone cells (tetrachromacy) instead of the standard three, allowing finer color distinction.
What does the color hue test measure?
The color hue test measures your ability to distinguish subtle differences between similar colors. It is based on the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test used by professionals in design, printing, and art industries. A perfect score means you can detect extremely fine color differences.
Designers brag about sub-20 scores. Sort the tiles above and see what your cones can really separate.
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