
How people use QR codes... - instakill
http://www.howpeopleuseqrcodes.com/
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ColinWright
To save you the effort, the code says:

    
    
        They don't - it's overly
        complicated and stupid.
    

Well, that's one opinion. Personally, I use QR codes quite a lot. I scan them
when I see them - it takes virtually no time - and it's given me information
quickly and easily that would otherwise had to have been taken down by hand,
either immediately, or later, from a photo.

But as a single example for how I use them, I have a QR code on my business
card. Reactions fall broadly into three groups:

1\. Those who know what a QR code is and use it to go straight to my on-line
contact details. It connects to

1a. my blog,

1b. my other writings,

1c. my speaking details, and

1d. my contact details for further information.

2\. Those who don't know what a QR code is, but are curious. It creates a
talking point about technology, and how its appropriate use can make life a
lot simpler. That is, after all, how I make money.

3\. Those who don't notice or don't care. For them it's cost me nothing.

I see nothing but benefits.

What am I missing?

~~~
jeffool
Couldn't a website provide links to all those things? Without having to pull a
camera out of your pocket?

I guess you could take time to snap a picture that means nothing to the human
eye, I'd rather just tap it in or write it down. At least nothing requires
them, like you said.

~~~
mhink
True, but the power of QR codes lies in the ability to embed large amounts of
contextual information that's not directly related to remembering it.

Consider an ad campaign in a large city that puts up advertisements on bus
stops. A savvy marketing department could put QR codes on each advertisement
which direct the user to a webpage, but also include metadata about where that
particular ad was posted.

Additionally, it's very popular among marketers because of the interaction QR
codes drive. Generally, the process of interacting with a QR code (especially
with a link to a website) opens the site automatically in my browser. That's
one immediate impression. Since I'm on the go, I'm likely to lock my phone
without bothering to close the tab. When I open Safari back up, boom. There's
another impression. Whereas if I wrote the website down, there's much less of
a chance that I'd bother to go through the process of opening it later
(copying address into a browser.)

On the consumer side, if I see an ad I'm interested in, it's almost trivial to
take a picture of it rather than "tap it in or write it down". One hand, a few
taps, and I have both accessed it and saved it for later.

------
tree_of_item
QR codes make more sense when you think about mobile devices. All this little
experiment shows is that there's a better method of hyperlinking on large
computers. But are you going to want to stop what you're doing and type a link
in to your phone if you see something on a poster?

