Due to the enormous growth of mobile barcode technology, thousands of marketers are turning to QR codes to engage with their audience. While great news, we’ve found that many codes are providing a poor user experience simply because the codes were published incorrectly. Some codes are not scanning at all, making them useless and discouraging to potential customers. 

As a perfect example of “when QR codes go wrong”, we were sent a recent issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Inside just one section alone, we spotted three different cases where each of the marketers published a QR code that didn’t even work!

To help you avoid this issue, let’s take a quick look at what these particular codes did wrong;

- Lack of Quiet Space: Every QR Code should be surrounded by at least 2 module sizes of ”quiet” or “white” space (modules are the tiny black squares within the code).  The code below lacked this requirement, and was unable to scan as a result.  

- Too Much Density: It’s critical to ensure that your code isn’t too dense. Density becomes a concern when your code includes lots of data and is shrunk down to a smaller size. The code gets too cluttered in a small amount of space, which makes it more difficult or in this case, impossible to read.   

- Poor Dimensions: A QR code has to be square. It cannot be circular, triangular, or anything in between. Square or bust, period.

All of these issues are common risks when using free generators because you lack consistency and quality control over your codes.

Just remember, whatever code generator you choose, please, please (please) test it first across several apps and devices. Merely one bad user experience can turn a customer off QR codes forever!

So consider these tips as step 1-A of “QR Codes 101”, as the single most important thing to remember is “does the code work?”

For the past few weeks, we have been Beta testing our latest code action, the OS Detection code.  This is our latest example of our Premium Codes, that use the analytics from mobile user traffic in real time to deliver dynamic and relevant content.  In this case, the code detects the OS (operating system) of the mobile device scanning the code, and redirects to content the code publishers choose to show. 

This works with both the ScanLife app, and any other standard QR Code reader.

Of course, the best application for this code, is to get a mobile application!  Many brands and publishers have apps for iPhone, Android, and maybe BlackBerry.  A single OS Detection code can be created for all of the leading operating systems, and there is even a default landing page in case you have an app for two of these, but not the others.

Here’s a video showing how the same code goes to different app stores based on the device – Android and iPhone:

Here’s a video that shows how easy it is to do this with a ScanLife Business account:

This takes minutes to set up, and you don’t have to bother with building any landing pages or investing in extra mobile detection systems. You just plug in the URLs, and you’re done!

Here’s a code to try it yourself:

The mobile barcode space is moving very quickly, and it’s exciting to see marketers and users embrace the technology.  Ads are popping up right and left with QR codes, many of them powered by ScanLife.

But, with growth comes growing pains which we try to help our users  avoid.  One feature our system offers is the ability to change the code content whenever you want.  So if you have to print the code before your website is ready, you just log in, edit and everything is updated.  This also comes in handy if you happened to make a mistake on the content you entered.

If you use other “non managed” or “direct” code generators, you cannot change what is embedded in that code.  So you have to be very sure it’s right before you save it, and before you print it.

Unfortunately, one marketer discovered this issue the hard way.  We don’t want to pick on anyone, but it’s just a good example of what can go wrong.  The below Onstar ad ran on the back of Entertainment Weekly.  They used a direct code which has one major issue – it’s missing a backslash after the http header.  Therefore, many code reading apps (including ScanLife) do not recognize this as an actual URL so the website cannot even be launched!

Code from Onstar Ad

This technology is really very simple, but things can go wrong.  We hope that examples like this will quickly become distant memories, as everyone becomes experts!