Ever see those small white squares with weirdly arranged
small black squares within them? Yep. Those are QR codes. And those weirdly arranged squares? Yes, they contain some information.
Come on, what are QR codes?
Well technically speaking QR codes contain information which
has been structured into an array of black and white squares. This info can be
very easily generated and as easily read with a camera enabled phone in
conjunction with a QR decoding software.
What purpose do they serve?
In short they put the offline world in contact with the
online world. QR codes can be used to embed links to the website of the brand
being promoted. It can be used for a variety of purposes including leading the
user who is scanning the QR code to a website which can give more information
on a specific topic. They can be used as a hiring tool to direct potential
employees to apply for a job.
An interesting use is that of QR codes being placed on
tombstones and which when scanned will lead to a web page which can display the
info related to the person in question.
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| Example : QR Code to this website. |
Any shortcomings?
Perceived shortcomings are that not everyone has a camera
enabled phone, If they do they need to buy third party software. Even if these
conditions are fulfilled there still is the perceived issue of the site not
being displayed properly on the mobile.
In today’s world almost all cell phones are enabled with a
primitive camera and third party software is reliable. In addition companies
have realized that a substantial chunk of traffic is from cellphone users and
hence these companies are making / have already made their company websites
cellphone friendly.
What’s the future for QR codes?
Although reports suggest that user do recognize QR codes and
have scanned a QR code at least once what would really give a real sense of the
usefulness and usage of QR codes would be how many times does a person see a
code and actually pull his/her cell out to scan it. Example: Out of the 10
times that a person sees a QR code he ends up scanning the code 8 times. That
would serve as a yardstick to the future of the QR code technology.
Sources -
http://sjsucs100wcs200w.blogspot.com .
Sources -
http://sjsucs100wcs200w.blogspot.com .
Seven Things you should know about QR Codes, Educause Learning Initiative.
You have explained the basics of QR codes in a creative way. It would be funny to scan a code on a tomb stone though. :D That day is not far I guess. I read mostly about QR codes being used for advertisement, though I didn’t think of its usage in hiring process (I know candidates have to market themselves to the companies). It will be great if HRs use these codes to get information about candidates. This will ease their tasks considerably. You have provided some statistics about the usage of QR codes by people and I was unaware of it. You have composed your article nicely. But, it would have been great if your QR code looked more vibrant.
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