QR Codes, really in 2018?

Can we talk about QR Codes? I thought we put this issue to rest years ago. I thought that we all decided they were a cute idea for a minute, but they never really panned out. However, I was driving back up to my hometown for the long Memorial Day weekend and found myself behind a Wellness Pet Food tractor trailer with a QR code on the back door.

I’ll pause for a minute while your mind around that. It is 2018 I didn’t think that I would be taking the time out of my day to write about the many egregious design and usability issues with a QR code. I imagine a graphic designer’s boss or boss’s boss insisted that a QR code be put on this truck, and the designer had no choice but to do their best job integrating this monstrosity into the overall design. This is where some simple user centered design thinking and empathy can prevail.

No one has a dedicated app that reads QR codes. And if they do, they forgot they have it or can’t easily find it on their phone because it was downloaded in 2010.

QR codes usually just open a website. It’s easier to type a url into your Chrome browser than open a special app, snap a photo, wait for it to be recognized the code, then launch your phone browser to open a webpage.

Now lets looks at the unique issues with placing a QR code on the back of a moving vehicle.

I feel foolish for having to say this but, it’s a moving vehicle.

A user driving a car behind the tractor trailer has to remember they have an app and locate on their phone, then get close enough to a tractor trailer to scan the image. This is all happening while driving 75 mph — looking out a windshield that is streaky with tree pollen, bug guts and bird poop — at a QR code that is obscured with dinge and dirt from weeks of driving nonstop across the country.

I didn’t take a photo of the actual truck I saw because I hold my life and safety at a higher regard.

Let’s imagine conditions are perfect, maybe you are at a red light in your freshly cleaned Toyota Camry behind a spick and span truck with the QR code. You have the time to open your phone, locate or download the app and scan the truck. I still cannot think of anything that would be relevant that would appear on a phone at that moment.

There are two ways QR codes are used. One that is for a marketing purposes that try to add value to a company, the other is a tool that adds value for a user.

For example a single QR code on the back of a truck falls into the first camp of using a QR code to add value to a company via marketing, rather than adding value to a user. QR codes cannot work as a marketing play because they randomly appear in the wild without any context, and once the novelty of a QR code reading app wore off, you are just stuck with foolish designs that have big black and white squares on them. Users have been trained that random QR code won’t provide them with any value in their life, it is just a company trying to sell them more stuff. Or look like they are tech savvy and hip.

Placing QR codes beside pieces of art in a museum, or as a way to access virtual or augmented reality works because they are a being used as tool for a user to add value to their experience. They are in context to an experience and a user knows what is going to happen when they interact with them. This is also a much better way to get users into your ecosystem and foster long term relationships that are more valuable to you in the long run.

It is a shame that the plight of poorly executed QR codes ruined them for everyone by making users skeptical. When they could have become a tool to add value and joy for people, if only they were used for good and not evil.