15-Cap Hue Arrangement Screen

A short hue-ordering activity

This activity asks one practical question: can you place fifteen digital colours into a smooth sequence on this device, under the current viewing conditions?

It is inspired by the arrangement format used in conventional colour-vision testing, but it does not reproduce a calibrated physical test. It cannot decide whether a deficiency is present, grade severity, or determine whether a person meets an occupational standard.

Compared with the longer hue practice, fifteen samples provide a quicker and coarser view of the submitted order. The wide spacing makes the interaction easier, while also limiting what can be inferred from a smooth or uneven sequence.

Crossings, and why they are the whole point

Arrange the caps and the screen draws your order as a path around a colour circle. Two outcomes are possible.

If the submitted sequence follows the reference order, the path travels smoothly around the perimeter. Minor local swaps shorten or lengthen a segment but may not create a crossing.

If two distant samples are placed next to each other, the path can leap across the middle. That is a crossing. Colour similarity may contribute, but display rendering, room lighting, fatigue, misunderstanding, or drag-and-drop error can produce the same diagram. The browser result therefore does not assign a deficiency type or severity.

A useful way to read your own diagram: ignore how neat it looks, and count how many lines cut through the centre.

Interpreting your outcome

No crossings. Your submitted order followed the reference sequence without jumping across the circle. This is reassuring for the activity, but it does not prove typical colour vision or fitness for colour-critical work.

One or two crossings. Repeat once after checking the display and taking your time. A repeatable concern that matters for work or study is best assessed professionally.

Multiple crossings. Several parts of the submitted sequence differed from the reference order. The diagram cannot tell whether this came from colour perception or the testing conditions; a professional assessment can answer questions that matter outside this activity.

Crossings with no consistent angle. More likely a testing artefact than a finding. Scattered, inconsistent crossings usually mean the caps were hard to manipulate, the display was rendering them poorly, or the attempt was rushed.

Honest limits of a browser version

Cap colours here are synthesised by your display rather than printed as controlled pigment, and the coarse spacing that makes this screen robust also means a panel rendering hues inaccurately can shift a borderline arrangement. Adaptive colour features — Night Shift, blue-light filters, HDR tone mapping — should be off. Room light should be neutral and even.

The interaction is also not the clinical one. Dragging caps on a touchscreen or with a mouse introduces motor error that a physical tray does not, and the screen cannot tell the difference between a cap you placed wrongly and a cap you dropped wrongly.

Most importantly, this is a screen and not a certification. No online activity is accepted for aviation, rail, marine, driving or employment colour standards. Those require supervised clinical testing, typically combining plates, a graded arrangement test and an anomaloscope.

For a different activity format, try the digit plate screen. For a longer sequence with more colour steps, use the 40-cap hue arrangement practice. Neither browser activity establishes whether a deficiency is present. Background reading sits in types of colour blindness and what colour blindness is, and our medical disclaimer sets out what these results are not.