

Creative QR Codes - hamiltonchan
http://mashable.com/2011/07/23/creative-qr-codes/

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jdietrich
Don't do this. Ever.

Firstly, you're eating up your margin for error. This seems fine when you're
scanning with an iPhone 4 from a galley proof in a brightly lit office, or
from your calibrated monitor. It becomes a big problem when users are scanning
creased newsprint on a poorly lit train, from a dirty TV at the wrong aspect
ratio, or with a crappy cameraphone with a scratched lens.

Secondly, you're pissing away the inherent call to action in a QR code. Many
of these more styled QR codes are barely recognisable as such. Either you
reduce your scan-through rate because people don't know that your
multicoloured blob is actually a QR code, or you have to explicitly state
"this is a QR code, you can scan it". I hope I don't have to explain why those
are bad design outcomes.

If you hire designers, this is a brilliant litmus test. Anyone who thinks that
this is a good idea is incompetent, plain and simple. They will make decisions
which are pretty, but will annoy your customers and cost you money.

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potatolicious
Will any of those codes actually _read_?

The Disney codes are cool - they are creative in a way that doesn't compromise
the readability of the code. The others just seem like gigantically bad ideas.

It's hard enough convincing people to use QR codes - the more you violate the
spec the more devices will stop reading it.

~~~
sp332
The "Barcode Scanner" app in the Android market had trouble with the first
one, and the one with the panda in it. Google Goggles had no trouble with any
of them.

~~~
jc4p
Goggles was uable to load the Farmville one for me.

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sgrove
I'm torn between NFC and QR codes... or at least, I was. I've seen some really
spectacular exampled of QR codes recently - while in Korea, and most recently
via paperlinks. I was initially skeptical of the user experience with QR
codes, but after watching a paperlink demo, it's like magic.

We're about to finalize our logo, and immediately afterwards, they'll have one
more happy, paying customer.

~~~
hamiltonchan
We at Paperlinks appreciate the support! With NFC and QR codes, I don't think
it has to be either/or. NFC is a fantastic technology that truly makes real
world hyperlinking even more seamless. We just need more phones with NFC
readers on them. In the meantime, there's QR codes, and companies like
Paperlinks are trying to make them as easy and effective to deploy as
possible!

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Rabidgremlin
If you have an Android phone I released an app last week that lets you create
customised QR codes containing your contact info. Check out
[https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.andro...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.android.mecodelite)

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gmac
In a similar vein: <http://blog.mappiness.org.uk/2011/04/05/logo-qr-code/> and
<http://2d-code.co.uk/bbc-logo-in-qr-code/>

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hollerith
Speaking of aesthetics, I like the experience of looking at Microsoft Tags
much more than looking at (ordinary) QR codes.

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Mizza
There's a lot more cool stuff yet to be done with QR codes!

I'm going to announce this properly sometime this week when we've got a nice
demo video, but we just (and I mean JUST) launched a new webapp for people who
want to have flexible QR redirects with analytics.

If any of you guys are interested: <http://omniqrcode.com>

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aw3c2
Does someone know an easy way to figure out what elements in a QR code are
irrelevant?

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Kwpolska
They suck. #5 won't work on my phone. #7, #9, #11, #12 don't like me, too.
Even something as simple as #10 works incorrectly. #8 has problems.

