I've been seeing more and more people using Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) in a wide verity of unique ways. From creating links that take you to mobile versions of websites, to signing up for e-newsletters, additional information on plants at nurseries and even used for driving directions. The thing that drives me nuts is how little thought most people place in actually creating the QR Code itself.
Why should we spend time figuring out how to properly create a decent QR Code? Don't you just take a link, paste it in a QR Code generator and then save the pretty picture it gives you? This is kind of like hearing that "everyone needs to use Social Media", then creating an account, posting "I just ate some toast!" and then wonder why nobody is following you. QR Codes are kind of like that, they are showing up everywhere and you need to give people a reason to scan yours.
Why do they have that shape?
Hard to believe, but the modern QR Code has it's roots in traditional Bar Codes and are often referred to as 2D Bar Codes because they contain information across multiple levels.
Other than the random dots all over the place there are a couple of things to keep in mind when using QR Codes.Color
The main reason you see black and white QR Codes is that they are mainly looking for a difference in contrast. Therefore, if you wanted to, you can actually mix in different colors and it will still work. Now, don't go too crazy as there needs to be enough of a contrast so that as broad a range of phones can scan them as possible.
You can play with the colors, but don't inverse them. Basically, the two colors are binary information for your phone when de-cyphering a QR Code and if you were to invert those colors you would, in affect, change every "yes" to a "no". Yes, this will mess with a phone. Ok, it's won't really mess with it, it will simply ignore whatever code you are trying to scan.
Orientation
One really handy thing about QR Codes is that they have a couple of "fail safes" built into them and one of those has to do with the orientation of the actual QR Code. If you look at the images, on either side, you will notice that there are three larger squares and one smaller square. On every QR Code you will see the larger squares in three corners of the code and the smaller square will actually show up multiple locations in larger Codes. The three larger squares tell your phone what the orientation of the code is, so you don't have to worry about your code being tilted or even upside down.
Adding Additional Info
One of the "fail safes" that QR Codes use is to add redundancy to the information stored within the code itself. This means that if there are any problems with the printing of the QR Code or if the phone doesn't get all of the image or whatever, people scanning your QR Code can still get to your content. The fun comes in when you intentionally add errors into your QR Code.
How many errors you can have, and still successfully scan the code, isn't an exact science (link to Wikipedia) but it is enough to allow us to have a little fun. The image on the left comes from Hack-A-Day and they have a great writeup on hacking a QR Code to your will. If you want some more examples on manipulating QR Codes check out this article on Mashable, personally I love the one for Corkbin and the other one made of M&Ms.
One thing you can't play with though are the three squares I mentioned before. You can get away with rounding corners, or changing colors, but you need to keep those three squares pretty much as is.
Images Around Your QR Code
While the three boxes, mentioned above, tell a phone what the proper orientation of your QR Code it also informs us on where the important parts are. This allows us to place images just outside of the actual QR Code and they don't interfere with scanning.
This image was used by the Red Cross in order to get donations for relief with the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The great part is that they were able to mix the QR Code into their logo, but to also use some of the "look" of the QR Code to add the images in the other squares. In the actual QR Code itself they also manipulate the redundancy of the code and add an image of the island of Japan right in the middle.
I think the drive is over now, but what used to happen is that you would scan the code and it would take you to a website that would ask for a donation to help out. They made it really easy to do over your phone and I saw this image pop up in a lot of places.
Size Matters
The first thing to remember with QR Codes is that it's role is to store information, maybe not in a form that people can read but information none the less. Therefore, if you need to store more information in a QR Code it HAS to be larger (contain more dots) in order to convey that information. Hey, I didn't say this was rocket science!
To determine how big your final QR Code actually is, I recommend using the handy formula from QRStuff.com and they say that each dot of a QR Code should be at least 0.4mm or 0.016in across. So, if we have a QR Code containing a lot of information, it can be 60 rows tall and 60 columns wide giving us a minimum size of 0.96 inches per side but if we had a QR Code that was only 25 by 25, the minimum size would only be 0.4 inches per side. That is less than 1/5th of the surface area of the larger code!
If we have a long URL we are trying to encode, are we stuck with the larger QR Code? No! Actually using a URL shortening service (such as bit.ly and goo.gl) gives you multiple benefits such as:
- Smaller QR Codes (see "Rocket Science" above) giving you more space for other information.
- Smaller QR Code, but you don't have to make it tiny. The sizes given above make it easy for modern phones to read your codes but I really would shy away from making it is tiny as possible so you don't exclude older phones.
- Tracking - Most URL Shortening services will tell you how many people are using the QR Code in order to go to your website overall and a breakdown of each day (to match up with any other campaign you might have going as well).
Going Beyond the Basic QR Code
Google Analytics
One handy trick I found, when creating links that go to your website, is to do a little modifying of the URL. The thing that most people don't realize is that while modern browsers are extremely sophisticated and Google Analytics does an amazing job showing you how people are using your website, there are some quirks you can take advantage of.
- If there is additional information in your link, a browser will pass all of that info to the web-server and the server will promptly ignore it. This allows us to add additional information to our links that only pertain to us and has zero affect in how the actual page is displayed.
- Google Analytics can't tell that the extra info is irrelevant, it just assumes that it is a unique page.
What good does this do us? Try this one: Both rentmej.blogspot.com and rentmej.blogspot.com?Source=AwesomeQRCodeArticle will take you to the exact same page. The trick is that Google Analytics sees these as two unique pages and will track all of your metrics separately. So, if the goal of your campaign is to drive people to a particular webpage and you tag your links properly, you can see how each medium worked, where did they go once they got there, how long did they stay and, most importantly, how does this compare to our normal traffic.
Driving Directions
Modern Mobile OSs are getting more and more sophisticated and will often understand the link you are sending them to that is might be better to load an actual application instead of a web browser. For example, the QR Code to the side will take you to the "UW Milwaukee School of Continuing Education" located in downtown Milwaukee but most phones will open up this location in your default map application (i.e. Google Maps). The extra benefit is that you now have access to more resources than a simple web page and when you click on the location, on the map, one of the first options is to get driving directions from your current location using the internal GPS.
Who Are You?
One really fun use of QR Codes, that I stumbled upon, was the company Skanz. They create custom bracelets, phone cases and decals, with a QR Code, and the idea is that people can scan the code and they are taken to a website with information about you, photos, etc. The New York Times had a great line of "you’ve become a human hyperlink". So instead of trading business cards, or writing your number on a napkin, you just tell the other person to scan you.
Buying Groceries
File this one under "cool things you can do with QR Codes" and is really just to give you an idea of how creative you can get with them. There are subway stations in South Korea that have "virtual grocery stores". The idea is that the walls are covered with pictures of various items you can buy at a normal grocery store and each item has a QR Code. You load an app on your phone, scan in the items you want, check out and the items are delivered to your house by the end of the day.
Wrap Up
Now that you know everything there is to know about QR Codes, at least the juicy bits, go out and get a little creative with your next QR Code!
