We love to hate the QR Codes.
QR Codes have been like this disease of a cool idea with continually poor implementation, until now.
Brief Intro
Incase you are unaware and missed the QR code hype train as it raced by, QR codes are basically a 2 dementional barcode, minus the bar part. They look like this:
When QR codes first came out, there was a ton of hype around them and how cool they are that you can encode almost anything into a QR code for someone to scan and access the data or url encoded in it. They started appearing in menus, advertisements, newspapers, magazines etc. For the most part, the most common things encoded were plain text, urls, and sms messages.
After all these advertisers got their hands on QR codes, they thought it would be this revolutionary way to connect people to access online content from all their offline content by embedding them in the offline content for people to scan.
So fitting the hype that was surrounding QR codes at the time, a ton of QR code scanning apps were born in all the different smartphone markets. The problem with the QR code is that you need an app to scan it. Nothing is built into your phone to do it automatically. Why is that a problem? Let’s see, here’s the user experience flow:
- “Ooo QR code! Wonder what it links to?! Let’s scan it!”
- Retrieve phone from pocket
- Swipe / Unlock your phone
- Hunt for that QR scanner app you downloaded
- Open the QR scanner app …(wait for load time if it sucks)
- Scan the QR code (if you’re lucky. Not all scanner apps’ default view was the camera view. If so, insert additional step here)
- Encoded url of QR code gets opened in your mobile browser…wait for load
- Yay! We found more advertisements*!
*Typically you find these promoters and advertisers abusing the QR code and just use it to get you accessing more advertisments.
As you see, we have quite the list of events that happen between recognizing a QR code and actually accessing the content encoded behind it. This (IMO) is why we have all ended up hating the QR code. At least that has been my experience.
Idea injection: If all smartphones were by default equipped with a “quick-scan” button of some sort, or a feature built into the default camera app, a large number of those steps would be eliminated or at least feel more frictionless. Maybe you take a picture of a QR code, and the camera detects that there is a QR code present, and offers you to either save the photo(for when you don’t want to scan) or access the encoded content. I don’t know — a lot to explore there.
Get to the point
The point of writing this is not to continue the complaints against QR codes. The point is to bring some attention to the already, and increasingly popular Scan app. They are making a push on the QR code and seem to be determined on making it useful and practical. And honestly, my interest is piqued.
Introducing Scan — Briefly
The Scan app was born minimalistic-ly and served the simple function of scanning, and maintaining a history of your scans with out too much extra fluff. It’s also nice it’s name was “Scan” so it was easy to find.
It was high quality (regardless of not trimming down any of the above mentioned steps) and served its function with the best possible grace it could within its capacity. I downloaded it, used it a few times, then it got tucked away in a folder on my iPhone (mainly due to the common QR code abuse).
Ok still don’t see where this is going
Garrett Gee creator of the Scan app for iOS and for Android has really been pushing these QR codes. And doing a good job at it. With “more than 50 million installs of its mobile apps” (TC) of which all require an account on scan.me in order to save your history and be able to access it online, that is a big audience to tap.
Scan is now pushing a new move. This new move is “Scan to Pay”. If this doesn’t click for you immediately, basically you can use a QR code as an order/checkout process. A QR code in a magazine next to that necklace you want to buy for your lovely lady friend or a Nixon watch for your boyfriend? Scan to order, pay and have the watch show up at your doorstep a few days later. Suddenly those 6+ steps I listed above for whipping out and access the QR code’s endpoint don’t seem such a burden.
If you want to hop in line & know when it goes live — check it out here.
Fueling the Fire
As part of this move of ‘Scan to Pay’, Scan has taken a new round of funding for $7M, and is being aired on ABC’s Shark Tank tonight (Friday October 11). This can only mean potential additional funding of investment, if he doesn’t get eaten alive. You can read more about the details of the $7M over at Tech Crunch.
Another way they are pumping the fire up on this is their current contest. Scan the golden QR code for your chance to win an iPhone 5s or a handful of other prizes. Check it out over at www.scan.me. I did it — because frankly, I wouldn’t mind a new iPhone — , and although it would be in my own best to not tell you about it, I believe karma is a thing.
Could this be the big move that makes QR codes practical?
Is that what could solve the QR hate? Could this put QR codes in a position to be applicable, and not overly abused by advertisers? Do you have any concerns about this ‘Pay to Scan’ feature? What’s your opinion? Will you hate QR codes forever?
