An IQ Test for designers

This morning I found a link to a color IQ test. How well do you discern hues? I found it challenging and ended up with a score of eight; zero being a perfect score. The goal is to arrange the tiles in the proper order.

Take your time, I don’t think there’s a time limit. Feel free to brag and post your scores.

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33 comments

  1. ChristyBurton says:

    Yay I got a 4! The first time I got a 16, then I realized the contrast on my monitor was turned down all the way. :) Now I see spots.

  2. Diane says:

    4! better to close eyes, then look without focusing to pick out spots that don’t match. My weakness was in the blue/lavender portion of the spectrum.

  3. Barb Mas says:

    OMG, I got 18 and I thought I was doing a really good job! I guess this shows why I struggle choosing colours for my clothes. I like the construction side, hate trying to choose fabric colours and patterns.

  4. Carrie P says:

    OK, so I don’t expect anyone to believe me but I got a perfect score!! I’m not a designer, but maybe I should be… hee hee!

  5. cgHipp says:

    This was fun. I had no idea what to expect, but I got a 3. The medium greens were the area I had trouble with. I did this on my work laptop with horrible resolution, so I’m pretty happy what that score!

  6. Michelle says:

    Perfect score as well. I’m closing in on 46, so I don’t think youth is a factor. I, too, am using an old laptop with a smudgy screen. I did “proofread” (since there was no penalty for multiple moves). When I finished a row, I dragged each tile to the left and to the right to see if it still looked correct. I guess all those years of matching threads and fabrics helped. And what use is this extreme discernment in my real life? Other than driving my spouse crazy?

    This was fun, Kathleen! Thank you.

  7. Eric H says:

    34 the first time. I could definitely tell there was some striping, but could not stand to look at the screen for one more second.

    0 the second time. Michelle’s strategy of setting them roughly in order and then testing in both directions worked really well. I looked away for a while after the rough ordering.

    It would be interesting to put both a time and a move penalty on this test. I wonder if this is innate or learned?

  8. 3KillerBs says:

    After adjusting the brightness on my new/old monitor (previous, old, yard-sale CRT monitor having died DS#1 dug a different, new-to-me, old, yard-sale CRT monitor out of storage), I got a perfect score.

    I’ve always suspected that I had unusually good ability to see shades of color because, as a teen, I had many arguments with my mother who insisted that a faintly blue-toned red sweater matched a plaid skirt with a faintly orange-toned red stripe. Not to mention what I considered the very obvious difference between the blue-black in the purse and the green-black in the shoes which she couldn’t see at all.

    Later finding that my best friend and my husband couldn’t see them either I concluded that it was just me. Though one college friend could see the same, subtle difference between the slightly salmon pink sweater that flattered her oriental complexion and the faintly rose-purple pink that flattered my pale, German-American skin while our other friends thought we’d bought identical sweaters.

    I’m going to send this test to my 17yo DS#1, who does game mapping and modeling. He’ll fuss for hours over the precise shade of lighting effect to create the mood he’s after.

    BTW — I couldn’t post this from Firefox even though I DID have Java and cookies enabled.

  9. Sandra B says:

    I got 4 and my husband got 3. He’s an artist and does edition screenprinting for other artists, so I expected he’d get a good score. Our wrong ones were in the blue green area too. And we’re both over 40.

    When my son was little we used to play a game where we put house paint swatches in piles of each colour. There was a particular toxic colour which looked green when it was on the yellow pile, but yellow when it was on the green pile. It was funny to watch him change his mind about the correct pile – he moved it about 6 times, and I finally had to hide it before it drove him nuts. Another time he asked “is it just me, or is the grass extra green today?” There had been a bush fire, and there was a yellow haze in the sky, so yes, to him the grass was extra green.

  10. Liana says:

    Ha! I got a perfect score!! I am so amazed. My mother has the best color memory of anyone I know, and I never thought I was nearly as good with color, so this is nice. It was funny watching the tiles. The next tile I needed seemed to just jump out and almost change color, so it was easy to just go down the line with them.

  11. Heidi B says:

    I got a perfect score! I work in the fashion industry and our company is really particular about colors matching – especially the CADs that we print out have to match to fabric colors that we have picked, so my eyes have been well trained! Yay! I didn’t expect to do perfect!

  12. Beth Miller says:

    Cool! Perfect score :)
    Maybe now fewer people will argue with me over what color something actually is!
    Probably not. Oh, and 36 btw, so age does not seem to be a factor.

  13. Aha, tried again on a different monitor. Perfect score!

    And it was harder this time because the display didn’t show the final block at the end of the row — it showed it wrapped around to sit directly under the first block. So I was less than perfectly sure of the last block.

    So there, doubters!

  14. Josh Latham says:

    I got a rock! just kiddin’ I got a 4! Looks like we are all pretty close to genius. Jess got an 11. He might can out draw me but I’ve always known I was better with color. :::sticks tongue out at him:::

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