Top 10 myths about QR codes
QR codes seem to be everywhere these days - but they're often misused and misunderstood. Mobile expert Terence Eden takes us through the top ten myths about QR Codes
Those little black-and-white squares are taking over! Every newspaper drips with them, they can be seen in art galleries and shaved into footballer's heads. Obviously someone thinks they're a good idea - yet lots of people seem to get very irate at their very mention.
Here's my quick guide to the top ten myths about QR codes.
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1. QR codes can only contain a web address
It's true that the most popular use of QR codes is for URLs, but in fact they can contain any type of text. This means that you can use them to send emails, text messages, point out geographic locations, log in to WiFi, or even make a phone call.
2. No one is scanning QR codes
It's a popular meme that QR codes are made by over enthusiastic marketing departments despite no one scanning them. Public statistics can be hard to find, but TfL's QR codes in London are scanned by around 10,000 people per month. The QRpedia enabled exhibits in the Miro museum were scanned over 12,000 times.
3. Visual recognition will make QR codes obsolete
Wouldn't it be great to point your phone at a poster and have it slurp the information off? Well, yes, but it's highly expensive and really impractical. It requires lots of centralised infrastructure and high computing power. There's also the tricky issue of homographic disambiguation - computers find it really tricky to tell the difference between 1!Il| or even 0 and O.
4. NFC kicks the arse of QR codes
Ahhh, NFC. The "cold fusion" of the mobile world. Like cold fusion it will revolutionise the industry and it's merely a few years away! Sadly NFC has been a few years away for the last decade! There are virtually no NFC handsets on the market and the tags are expensive. Almost every cameraphone can have a free QR scanner and the codes are cheap to generate and print.
5. It's easy to damage a QR code
You know how you can scratch CDs and they will still play? They contain error-correction which means that minor defects can easily be ignored. QR codes incorporate the same technology - meaning up to 30% of a code can be damaged or obscured and the code will still be scannable.
6. QR codes look boring
There's no need for QR codes to look boring. You can combine a variety of colours and logos into a QR code - just so long as you remember not to obscure the three corner squares.
Take a look at these examples:
7. QR codes can be inverted
No. No they can't. Don't even try this. Some QR scanners will attempt to invert the image, but the majority just won't be able to cope.
8. You need mobile / WiFi signal to use QR codes
With the advent of WiFi in the London Underground, this complaint has started to dry up. However, nearly every single QR scanner will store the results of a scan so you can access it once you're back in coverage.
9. It's really complicated to generate QR codes
There are a tonne of free and easy to use QR generators:
10. QR codes are easy to use
Perhaps the most contentious one. Because it's so easy to generate QR codes there is a tendency for people to put them to really bad use. QR codes on billboards too high for anyone to scan, codes on motorways when cars are travelling too fast to scan, codes which lead to non-mobile websites, codes hidden behind other objects - the list is almost endless.
Conclusion
QR codes are on an unstoppable rise - they are being used by businesses both large and small, they're used by activists and individuals, they're on billboards and badges.
They're free to use, and customers seem to have taken a shine to them. QR scanners now regularly feature among the top downloaded apps from app stores.
So, I say that it's time to embrace QR codes in all their blocky glory. Jump aboard the QR revolution and start scanning!
10 comments
Comment: 1
TfL reports that 1,107 million passengers travelled by Tube last year. That equates to an average of 92,250,000 people per month. Less than 0.01% of them scan a QR code. A negligible amount.
Comment: 2
And yes, the amount is minimal, as you'd expect.
Further, one could speculate over the demographics of those scanning QR codes. It's unlikely to be a completely heterogenous group. I'd say they come in two strata - one group who are the enthusiasts, for whom it anyway wouldn't be difficult to use an app or a URL for the same purpose; and one group who are trying it out, toying with it, for the novelty value. I won't speculate over the distribution between the two, but neither group is particularly interesting.
That's the central conundrum with these things.
Comment: 3
The TfL reports are for total passenger journeys - not total passangers. Unless 1 billion individuals pass through London per year. I know it's crowded, but...
It is wrong, I think, to look at percentages. If you sold 10,000 cakes, you wouldn't consider yourself a failure because there are 7 billion people in the world, would you?
You can see the stats for one of the codes that TfL put up at http://goo.gl/#analytics/goo.gl/dkooC/all_time
Terence
Comment: 4
You raise an interesting point about the conversion metric. Without knowing if the TfL code is on one bus shelter or a thousand, it's hard to judge its effectiveness. There aren't - as far as I'm aware - any publically available metrics for, say, a URL or phone number printed on a poster. So it's hard to compare.
On demographics, again you're right. The Google data tells us the type of phone used - so we can see they're not all Android users. There's a similar dataset from Tesco which I talk about on my blog http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/10/no-one-scans-qr-codes-apart-from-the-tho...
It's sad that there are no more detailed data.
Terence
Comment: 5
Comment: 6
As to selling cakes, you have to equate the advertising space. Everybody who uses the Tube is likely to see at least one QR code on a poster. Thus, to equate, I would have to ensure all 7 billion are as likely to see my cake ad. If I only got 10,000 sales a month from all that advertising, then yes, I would consider it an absolute failure.
Comment: 7
A use case that could bring real value might be checking into a busy restaurant, instead of waiting in line to tell the hostess you need a table of 4, if you could just walk to the door and scan a code, enter your phone number and number of guests, then when your table is ready, get an SMS, a user might start to see value. You could follow up with a satisfaction survey. This application could be used in many places where you have to wait to be served.
As for the percentage of users scanning QRs, I am not sure it matters. They are so inexpensive to implement, and can provide important analytics information embedded in them ( we built a QR generator that adds Google Analytics campaign information to your URL ), that any number of users can provide a ton of information. How do you know anyone saw your interstate billboard? Tens of thousands may drive by daily, hardly any will call.
I think we just need to make better use of QRs and better communicate to our audiences AND deliver something valuable to them. Only then will we see an increase in usage.
Comment: 8
Comment: 9
I've used QR codes in some print campaigns and had good hits but the call to action has to be prominent, a lot of campaigns are just putting it in the bottom right like it's a standard barcode which brings me to my next point. Barcodes can do exactly the same thing, but we don't see a resurgence of the barcode battler.
Comment: 10
I've started to use QR codes recently on our site page as info-holders for those regionally who have scanner capable phones to market/entice them into our business - something of a show that 'hey, we CAN do something cool too' type thing. So far people who have scanned them seem to like the info, but I'm still learning how to use them.
Anyway, thanks again for the great article - was very helpful!
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