Hi Ally  

In my opinion it comes back to usability, as these things do / pretty much everything normally does.

So - in order for someone to scan a barcode, they have to:

1. have a smartphone
2. have network access
3. have a barcode scanner (or custom app) on their phone
4. know what to do with it
5. be sent somewhere useful / be given something useful if they do scan it

In contrast, for someone to type in a URL, they have to:

1. have a smartphone
2. have network access
3. be sent somewhere useful / given something useful if they do type it in

Obviously, if 1 and 2 aren’t fulfilled then you’re stuffed anyway - but we can for the most part make some assumptions about mobile phones / data plans / locations with network access.

So then it comes down to you putting two additional barriers in front of people - having to have an app, and having to know what to do with it.  

Some people do shout very loudly about how rubbish QR codes are, but I think there are some circumstances when they can make sense. So, for instance, if you’ve *already* asked people to install an app on their phone with loads of rich information on it and you’re just trying to push them to locative content in that app - then in that instance your big barrier is getting them to install the app - and you might as well use QR if you’ve already got over that barrier.

Another circumstance is if the audience is particularly geeky - examples I’ve done which worked nicely include a team-based QR treasure hunt / quiz at a university web managers conference or doing a “send that persons contact vcard to me” which I built for UKMW a while back. These were both well received and used.

Oh - and a final reason FOR them is that they’re kind of magic, and kids (and geeks) like this. I built a simple QR treasure hunt for my kids to follow around the house and it’s a bunch more fun for them than typing in URLs. But - the app was already installed, and they knew what to do with it, so two big barriers had been removed already.

We did a test campaign with the Roman Baths a while back where we did a 10% discount on entry if you either scanned a code (on lots of bus stops / train stations etc) or followed a unique short URL. The short URL and the QR code fared pretty much equally.

Final bit of advice: whatever you do, make it trackable. I have seen SO many QR, barcode and URL based campaigns which haven’t been tagged up with Google Analytics campaign tracking. And this just leaves a huge hole in your knowledge about what people actually did. So:

1. If you go with QR, make sure you add a unique ?utm_source bit to your URL (use the URL builder from Google - https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en) - and you might as well do it for each QR tag so you know exactly which are being scanned. Or not.

2. If you go with a URL think about getting a short one. So asking people to type www.somereallylonginstitutionname.com/qr-trail/one into their mobile browser is just painful, and hard to articulate on your collateral as well. Instead, buy a short URL and again tag each one up with a unique thing and attach this to your GA campaign code. As an example we bought rmbath.com for our Roman Baths campaign, and did rmbath.com/1 and rmbath.com/2 etc - each of which set up so we could track it uniquely  

Final thought - think about SMS. It may seem nuts, but getting a user to send an SMS and then sending them back a URL to click on might (in some circumstances) be a viable thing to do. Shortcode SMS can be quite expensive, though, and you also run the risk of an ongoing cost for each SMS sent / received (albeit low, say 4p per message) - which may not fit with your budgeting.

Ping me off-list if I can bang on any more to you..

cheers

Mike




_____________________________


Mike Ellis  

We do nice web stuff: http://thirty8.co.uk (http://thirty8.co.uk/)   

* My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk (http://heritageweb.co.uk/) *


On Wednesday, 11 December 2013 at 09:23, Alun Edwards wrote:

> Hi,
>  
> I remember when QR codes were hailed as the next big thing. Is that still the hive-mind's opinion?
>  
> I'm aware of security issues. Are QR codes future-proof so users can access them next year, or in 10 years...? Other issues?
>  
> A long time ago I shared a panel (and actually one of those 'Lost In Translation' weekends) at a museums' conference in Lillehammer with one of the inventors. However, at the recent UKMW no-one said anything about QR codes. Indeed if QR was mentioned people would pause to spit! I am about to consult with a project who plan to literally carve QR codes onto stone plaques, along with inscriptions which may prove to have more longevity?
>  
> Any comments about QR codes please?
>  
> Thanks Ally
>  
>  
>  
> --  
>  
> Alun Edwards
>  
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> Tel: 01865 283347  
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>  
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