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QR Codes explained

Digitally connecting consumers of your paper-based content to the internet
is an incredibly powerful tool. QR Code technology is the Top 5 trends for 2011.

QR Codes were born and raised in Japan and are now conquering the world.

What is QR Code? A QR Code is a 2d barcode (square matrix code) designed by the Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. Initially they were use to track automobile parts during the manufacturing process. Today they are ISO standardized and open source.

QR is an abbreviation for Quick Response. It is a two-dimensional barcode (matrix barcode) that can store a link, plain text, SMS text message, addresses, URLs, Geo location, e-mail, phone numbers, contact information and it is used for quick connections (response) between static and online content. They can be scanned with smart phone cameras using the appropriate QR Code reader (scanner). The easiest way to understand their nature in today's media world is to describe them as paper-based hyperlinks, and this is a good description of what they do.

What are all these squares?

  • Symbol: other name for QR Code, used from graphic context perspective
  • Quiet zone or margin: is used to isolate the code from other packaging information. This zone is four modules wide
  • Position detection patterns: located in three of the four corners. This allows 360 degree (omni-directional) high-speed reading of the code
  • Data area: is an array of rows and columns. Each cell is stored as a binary number (1 and 0). Error correction codes are inserted into this area as well
  • Alignment pattern: they can appear In more complex QR Codes and they will be located in the lower right hand corner. This pattern allows the QR reader to correct for distortion when the code is bent or curved.The number of alignment patterns used depends upon how much information is being encoded and appear on Version 2 and higher
  • Timing pattern: helps to detect the position of each cell in the QR Code
  • Version info: Span from Version 1 (21 x 21 modules) to Version 40 (177 x 177 modules)
  • Format info: It contains the error correction rate and mask pattern of QR Code. The format information is read first when the code is decoded
  • Error-correction (Reed-Solomon code): is applied to restore the data when a part of QR Code is missing. The restoration rate varies on 4 different error correcting levels. For example, if a damaged area is up to 15% of the entire code size, its data can be restored by level M error correcting

Why QR Codes are different?

A QR Code is built out of modules and each higher version comprises 4 additional modules per side. When the amount of data increases more modules are required to create the QR Code, resulting in larger QR Code symbols. The size of the final code will depend on the amount of data you intend to have in it.

  • Version 1
    21x21, 10-25 chars
  • Version 2
    25x25, 20-47 chars
  • Version 3
    29x29, 35-77 chars
  • Version 4
    33x33, 67-114 chars
  • Version 10
    57x57, 174-395 chars
  • Version 40
    177x177, 1852-4296 chars

Best practices

  • The less modules the QR Code has the less it is prone to errors
  • Always try to use the short links service when coding long URL links to get more optimization and a more durable QR Code
  • Add Extra description after /slash in url link. This way the QR Code is more readable for users when scanned. http://goo.by/name-of-my-company
  • Use level Q or H error correction level for QR Codes used in factories or dirty places. For offices or clean environments the largest amount of data may be selected - level L. Level M is still most frequently selected and it is used by default.

Custom QR Code design

With customised QR Codes your marketing can become more interesting and colourful. QR Codes come, by default, in black and white pixels and sometimes it is hard to include such codes in the colour scheme of a marketing campaign without some design sacrifices. All these colourful pixels can be more interesting to scan and can reflect and enhance the brand, product or service at first glance.

Custom QR Code art is trying to solve this problem with uniquely designed QR Codes while still retaining its scanability. Another important aspect is that users can easily identity the brand or company behind the custom code and this delivers a bigger impact with proof of authenticity, that this code is safe to scan.

QR campaigns

Today QR Codes are appearing in marketing and advertising campaigns on posters, digital screens, products, estate agent boards, business cards, promotions, etc. They have already been used by the big mainstream media companies and brands - they’re all starting to use QRs!

QR campaigns

QR Codes are catching on

In first months of 2011 statistics shows explosive growth of QR Codes and also huge growth has been reported by Microsoft tag.

Worldwide usage grew 61.9% over Q4 2010. The US experienced 181.1% growth in Q1 2011 over Q4 2010 and comparing Q1 2010 and Q1 2011, US growth was 630%.

Top 5 growing countries for Q1/2011

  1. United States (181.1% )
  2. United Kingdom (166.5%)
  3. Netherlands (146.3%)
  4. Spain (94.4%)
  5. Canada (94.4%)
Global growth in mobile barcode usage Q4/2009 - Q1/2011