QR stands for Quick Response and it was designed in 1994 in Japan. I have noticed and found few QR codes in my working place. I found one on top of the lift button to serves as a circular/memo and another one at cafe to serve as a feedback form for customer to rate their services.
If you ask me, I found it quite brilliant because I can just scan the code with my camera without typing anything in my phone to search for more information. I also noticed that China started obsessing QR code recently. Here I came up with few more ideas to use QR code:
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
- Live update. About what bus number for the station, to where and where the bus currently is.
- Additional info or news. Sometimes I saw a poster in MRT but there is no link, only photo. Make me curious what its try to tell me.
EDUCATION
- Exercise or additional note for student. This is useful for student if they want to do additional exercises or dig deeper about the subject.
- Tree label. Label near the tree or as tag to provide information about the tree such as species, age, and its uses. Please do this in Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM).
- Building label. Label on the historical building to provide more information to tourist.
MARKETING
- Product label. Label to give more details about the product like how product is made.
- Food recipes. Food and its uses for cooking recipes and what else ingredient needed to cook the for the recipes.
- Product review. Can be link to Instagram or Youtube.
Discount voucher. Used by Starbuck right now.- Business card. Can be link to Linkedin or Facebook page.
- Book sample. Sometimes the book is wrapped in plastic and you curious to know the content inside or you just want to buy the soft copy.
OTHERS
- Games, contest or treasure hunt. Scratch and win a prize or print on the rubik cube.
- Easter egg. Incorporate as part of the games.
- Animal collar. Well, if you saw someone's dog, you can scan the code and find the owner's Facebook or that's dog Instagram.
- Annual report soft copy. Scan and get soft copy of company annual report during AGM.
Payment mode for transaction. Scan, pay and go. Used by China right now.- Ticket. As a admission ticket for movie or concert.
- Matchmaking? Use as a tattoo or print a poster of your own QR code link to Facebook Instagram, Google+ etc for people to know more about you.
But beware, there is a pro and cons of using the QR codes. Make sure you scan reliable QR code and do not enter any personal info.
PRO
- Easy to use because just need to scan the code.
CONS
- User must have the QR reader apps.
- Must have a website url to direct user to that website.
- Can direct user to scammer website, click bait and virus website.
GOOGLE PLAY STORE
There are numerous QR scanner and here I have published a QR scanner apps too at Google Play store. You can download it and scan the QR code and it will direct you to the website. This apps contain no advertisement and is totally free for everyone to use.
REFERENCES:
News: Before you scan another QR code, be warned!
Advertisement Campaign: 84 QR Code examples and ideas how design them
