QR Codes, Get a Clue

by Paul Lemmerick in BRANDING, FUN, SOCIAL MEDIA

20

Oct
2011

FILED UNDER

By Paul Lemmerick

If you spend any time walking the busy streets of downtown Edmonton, ride Edmonton Public Transit, watch television, or read articles online (most humans fall into one of those categories), you’ve likely come across those little boxes that look like something out of Blade Runner or 2001: A Space Odyssey. They’re called QR Codes (Quick Response) and you get redirected to a website URL when you scan them with your smartphone. Businesses use them to increase site traffic and allow consumers to interact with them in a new way, non-profit organizations use them around the world to create social change and awareness, and scumbags use them to ruin people’s days.

In one month, the search-term “what is a QR code” was googled over 1.5 million times in Canada alone. This data forces us to make the stark realization that people still don’t know what to do with QR codes, despite the codes having been around since 1994 when they were used by Toyota for tracking auto parts. And that realization forces me to wonder if they really matter at all. Will these ambiguous little boxes be around in five years?

My biggest objection to QR codes is based on their flouting of a simple, yet fundamental, principle of interactive design and user-interface strategy: make it clear to people where a link will take them when they click it. If they have to spend more than a few seconds figuring out where a link directs to, users likely won’t click anything. For me, QR codes are too often unclear on what URL they direct to. Context is key.

However, some business are taking a step in the right direction by using smart design to inform the user of the content they will be presented upon scanning the code. A good example from an Edmonton business is Don Wheaton Chevrolet.

As you can see, they’ve incorporated various car manufacturers’ logos into the code itself, as well as including the actual URL. It’s nice and simple – I’m not lost.

Let’s take a step outside of Edmonton’s technology and advertising/marketing industry and look at pieces that have found acclaim around the world.

Angry Birds takes incorporating informative graphics one step further:

Blogger Vincent Scheib of beautifulpixels.blogspot threw together this seriously beautiful (if incomplete) concept for creating a collage within a code. Here we see the line between art and technology blurred further.

While these are quite inventive solutions to the problem of ambiguity, I can’t help but feel like we’re just slapping lipstick on a pig (if you’ve ever played Angry Birds, you’ll remember that we’re supposed to hate pigs). We’re sidestepping the fundamental problem with QR codes: they don’t do a good enough job of informing the user of the destination. Too much effort goes into creating context for the codes (like using a car logo in the design) to make me think QR codes will be around for the long term.

Maybe this is part of a bigger problem regarding the way we interact with information and the unstoppable momentum to make things simpler and simpler (want to interact with my brand? Just “like” it. Simple as that!), but it’s still too much work for my media-saturated brain to look, stop, think, and scan.

Don’t Make Me Think. Web writers, designers, and developers: consider the principles in this book every time you set to work on a new project.

Such is the life of a true cynic, I offer absolutely no solution today. Only problems.

For more on QR codes, check out Mastermaq’s blog, and visit the City of Edmonton site to read about other QR code projects in Edmonton.

Paul Lemmerick is a Copywriter at DONOVAN. Comments on this post or suggestions for future topics are welcome.