By Artwell Nwaila
A lot of hype revolved around the possible merger between print and digital through QR codes. They popped up everywhere from milk cartons, to billboards and even business cards. Everyone who figured out how to take advantage of the new technology did so regardless of how uncreative the approach was. The hype seems to have died down and the code seems to be fading away. Or has it?
There are a few reasons why the excitement may have slowed down. One may be the fact that the QR code is not that quick after all. Add to the fact that after you have scanned the code and have reached your digital destination you are greeted with an outcome that was not worth the effort to start with. QR Codes would end up directing users to
Facebook pages or non-mobile websites. This conclusion is not very exciting and enough to repel people from touching another code. The over use of the medium may also have a direct link to its loss of popularity.
But there are brands that are taking the interaction a few steps further like the Spanish railway company Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya. To encourage reading on the trains they have partnered with book publishers and have posted QR codes on the trains which link passengers to free downloads of the first chapters from the latest novels. This is a good idea with a real reward at the correct time.
Another good example is
Atlantic magazine. The publication has recently taken the merger between print and digital to another level by intelligently incorporating QR Codes. Using a smartphone app, print readers are able to scan pages and access video interviews and other multimedia material. They have made the print experience as rich as a website experience.
Another issue with QR Codes is their lack of visual appeal. You can customise QR codes with tools like
QRlicoius. These tools allow you to change the colours and embed an image or logo and even supply analytics tools. Even with all that they still look like techno mumbo jumbo. In an article Jon Barocas wrote for
Mashable), he says; “Humans are visual animals. We have visceral reactions to images that a QR code can never evoke; what we see is directly linked to our moods, our purchasing habits and our behaviours. It makes sense, then, that a more visual alternative to QR codes would not only be preferable to consumers, but would most likely stimulate more positive responses to their presence.”
There is a technology which resolves the visual issue and may knock QR out completely; it's called Mobile Visual Search or MVS for short. And is an application that allows users to search by taking pictures.
Google has been the first to capitalise on this with the creation of
Google Goggles. Simply snap a photo of anything in the physical world and
Google will bring up the most relevant search query. MVS gets rid of the ugly code which takes up good real estate and creates the opportunity for a creative interface. Although this is exciting, the applications can still be used badly like QR codes. One of best example of MVS or augmented reality so far is Starbucks with their holiday cups
holiday cups and the
Valentine's Day campaign.
Ilya Pozin, a contributor from
Forbes, says in his article,
Are QR Codes Dead?, that with so many using them wrong, QR codes are running a thin line of almost turning into spam each time you scan. He goes on to say, "Until businesses embrace how to use QR codes to support their overall marketing goals, and users embrace how to use them, QR codes are a dying art we might want to consider moving on from." The same can be said about any new technology that follows QR codes.
At the end of the day we need to keep up with new technology and consider how we engage the reader after we scan.
What do you think? Are QR codes dead or just being misused?