You can find these symbols on leaflets, in magazines, or on packaging. Scan them with your phone to find out more information. Here’s why …
These symbols are called QR codes. QR is short for quick response, so named because they save you needing to type on the fiddly keyboard on your phone.
They are a new type of barcode, and work in the same way as barcodes in the supermarket. If you scan them with your phone they will either A) take you to a website on your phone or B) write a text message for you.
What you’ll need …
To scan them you need to use the barcode reader app on your phone. If you don’t have one you can easily download one for free.
iPhone: Open the iPhone App Store and search for Inigma
Android: Open the Android App Market and search for Inigma
How to scan a QR code …
- Open Inigma (or whichever app you chose) and point it at the code
- Make sure the QR code is within the red square
- Keep your hand steady so the camera on your phone can focus
- If it works you’re phone should beep and show you a web address
- To view it press ‘Go Online’
Try it …
If that worked, try some some more examples on 15 Creative QR Code Examples from Mashable.com
4 Comments
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Have to say I am not a fan of these at all. I see them as so inhuman – almost like visiting an IP address for a website rather than a domain name. I also do not like the idea of scanning something potentially unknown – too often they are used to appeal to our curious side, but who knows what site they may take you too? I look forward to them dying out if im brutally honest. If it takes a tutorial to learn how to use them, I don’t see them taking flight – especially as people are more impatient and fickle with technology than they’ve ever been. Just too inhuman and counterintuitive.
I’m not a fan of them either. This is mostly because I see lots of brands and agencies using them without reason. Worse they’re often linked to websites that aren’t mobile friendly. That said I do think they’ll survive for a long while yet, and here’s why.
Brands are fascinated by them. This means there’s money behind them, and therefore marketing/digital agencies supporting them.
There is a precedent. Countries like Japan, China and Korea have seen mass adoption of QR codes going way beyond packaging into books, magazines, museums and even gravestones.
They’re new. Plenty of people don’t know how to use technology. Most people don’t know how to use Twitter but it’s still a global phenomenon. The driving force is often whether people feel as though they should use them. Which they will if brands keep using them.
They can be useful. Whilst they are over used, badly used, and alienate non-smart phone users they do make it quicker to type a URL or text message e.g. first buses will tell me the time of the next bus if I text 40833554 to 60349. If they printed QR codes on their timetables I could click and scan. I see that as a definite improvement.
If people want to use them, which it seems they do, then they have a duty to educate their audience. Whatever technology takes their fancy we have a duty to make sure brands use that tech as wisely as they can.
I’ve used the google search app on these a couple of times. You take a photo of it and it returns the website in the search results. If you don’t want to go there the site description gives you a heads up. They seem a bit pointless. Google app lets you take a pic of a book cover and it finds it immediately. Surely that technology is more useful in the long term?
I agree. They’re often pointless if not used right. I’d only use them if they made life easier e.g. if I had the choice between typing in “www.happiness-cafe.co.uk/specialoffers” directly into my browser or tapping the app and scanning once, I’d choose the QR code.
I also agree that Google’s image recognition is way more powerful than QR codes but it has a downside. In order for it to work it needs to check against a huge database of images. Google is the only organisation that has a database like this at the moment, which means that they decide which images are recognised and which aren’t.
QR codes aren’t as simple, but the technology is open to the public, which means that anyone can create one.