

Ask HN: Do QR Codes work? - oatmealsnap

I see QR codes around all the time, but I've never actually seen anyone use them. I generally see myself as being excited to try out new apps or services that connect technology to the real world, but I've never felt compelled to use a QR code. Never even spent the time to download a QR app (that's how they work, right?).<p>Have any of you had success/failure in using QR codes with your service?
======
JoelMarsh
QR codes are probably the greatest example of monkey-see-monkey-do ad spending
in the last decade.

I have had large, international clients (you would recognize the brands) ask
us to "invent something that uses QR codes" because their competitors use
them.

I have seen the results of a campaign that was (and is!) huge in Sweden,
involving many regional celebrities, and the total number of QR scans was in
the double digits.

QR codes are a link. Plain and simple. Except they're not plain and simple,
they're weird and complicated. They take you from one piece of content, which
happens to be in real life, to another piece of content, which happens to be
online.

And you need to include your URL and instruction text anyway, so it's not
really providing a big advantage.

Some advertisers even use them ONLINE! That just baffles me completely.

If all smartphone cameras included QR readers by default, there MIGHT be a
chance for them, after a lot of public education. But as it stands now, the
incentive has to be huge to get over that initial barrier.

If QR codes really want to succeed they will have to become better than the
alternatives: Google + memory, URL + keyboard, etc.

------
kls
The problem is application, QR codes are a very useful technology for trying
real world items to digital assets. Where the problem lies is that most of
that tying is just tying junk advertising in the real world to junk
advertising in the digital world. Therefore there has been no incentive for
people to actually learn why qr codes are useful and how to utilize them.

One of the best uses I have seen for QR codes was at Disney's Epcot center,
during the food and wine festival. At this festival they have little kiosks
set up that sell an array of items from an international location. This year
they actually had QR codes on each countries sign, if you scanned it, it would
bring up that countries page with a list of the items that the particular
kiosk was selling along with some history and ingredients of the dish.

It was a well though out use for QR codes and I probably taught 30 or 40
people what QR codes where that night and how to use them, while standing in
line. They offered value in their use of QR codes and therefore people where
willing to expend the effort to learn how to use them. By the end of the night
I saw a good deal of people scanning them.

------
abcd_f
I got just the site for you :) -
<http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com>

~~~
oatmealsnap
hahaha I think that was one of the first links I read on HN. That's even
better now.

------
steeve
Think about the friction:

\- See ad, say for a movie, in the subway

\- Take my phone out of the pocket

\- Unlock it

\- Find the app...

\- Launch it

\- Loading...

\- Snap the QR code, which redirects me to the movie website

Versus:

\- See the ad

\- Google it later (if interested) when I'm in front of the computer

~~~
rhizome
Do you remember everything you want to "Google later?"

~~~
JoelMarsh
If you don't remember it later, you probably weren't motivated enough to do
the QR code in the first place.

------
anon1423
My most successful application of QR codes has been on my resume. Each resume
had a unique link to a page on my personal website/portfolio with some extra
info (PDF download, link to github/linkedin/etc) and some analytics so I could
see if it was getting any hits and what other parts of my site people were
looking at.

Didn't expect much to come of it, but I ended up getting some positive remarks
on it in interviews.

~~~
larrybolt
Than again, I though about putting a minified link to a Cv-page with extra
info and a way to interact right away. And if you're looking for a job in
development/design a simple base encoded url that points to a page where you
pinpoint shortcomings in the Site or App/Service of the business for which you
made the Cv is for.

------
mchannon
What's the most funny about QR codes is how high everyone's expectations seem
to be of them.

When "fizzbuzz.com" will do, then a QR code is pointless. I think what most
people fail to realize is that
"fizzbuzz33.tk/AEC330912/m3/video/webpageforthisparticularcode.html" scans
just as well without someone having to remember it or keep it straight.

Interestingly enough, the media the QR code is printed on tends to be
essential to a useful deployment- many people print them on glossy surfaces,
which reflect uneven lighting and make the scans fail.

They've been one of the strong points of my service- accomplishing an easy-to-
generate, hard-to-forge, hard-to-anticipate, and hard-to-save-for-later way of
distributing information and verifying the ability to obtain it.

------
jontonsoup
I've posted this here before, but a joke project I've been working on has seen
some success with QR codes... it is a toilet based social network
though...stalltalk.info.

------
timjahn
Personally, I think QR codes are a solution looking for a problem.

There was ONE time I found a QR code to be practically useful. My wife and I
were shopping for car seats, and the higher end model had a QR code that
scanned to watch a video about the safety features of the car seat.

I scanned the code, but the video took forever to load anyway, thanks to my
carrier and/or the server the video was on.

Not the best experience.

------
agranig
Since you can pack ANY reasonably short text into QR codes, it works well for
encoding a vCard (e.g. at the back of your business card), and we even encoded
pure Perl code once for a job campaign.

So, there might be good reasons and use cases for using QR codes, but just
encoding a URL probably isn't, looking at the conversion rate.

------
evanx
They do work for capturing secrets for 2-factor authentication into an app
such as Google Authenticator, which implements an ISO OTP standard. Any site
with username/password should really generate a OTP secret as QR code to scan
into one's phone!

------
stfu
I would love to see some data on this subject. Especially the ad-related
usage, that seems quite popular. I can see the point for verification purpose
or something like that were people are forced to use it, but otherwise...

~~~
oatmealsnap
I'm guessing most ad firms don't want to give out that data...if clients see
the conversion rate, they would probably be less likely to buy a QR package.

------
emilsundberg
In Stockholm we have a candy machine with a QR code to download their app to
make a purchase. If you want to app you have to use the QR code since they
don't tell you the name of the app.

~~~
oatmealsnap
I feel I would just not get the candy..

