QR – Quick Response
You may, like us, have been wondering what the funny little black and white boxes that have been appearing in magazine and newspaper advertisements in the past few months have been about. Our resident technodolt, Sarla Langdon sought advice from Dr Neal Harman, Director of Software Alliance Wales.
Sarla: What are QR Codes?
Dr Harman :QR Codes are like two dimensional barcodes. The data they represent can be anything but it’s usually the URL of a website, or instructions to create an email or SMS message. However, it can also be a social media link, or a someone's contact details, a calendar entry, a PayPal Buy Now link, or a number of other things. There are other kinds of 2D barcode but QR codes are probably the most common.
Sarla: Where would I come across them?
Dr Harman : Anywhere someone might want to make it easy to visit their website, or contact them by email or text. For example, on products or packaging, in advertising or product literature, or shop windows.
Sarla: How do they work?
Dr Harman :They encode data as printed patterns. Combinations of black and white squares are used to represent different characters.
Sarla : What use are they to me?
Dr Harman :You can use a smart phone to read the data in QR codes. There are apps available for different types of smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Android) that use the ‘phone’s camera to scan a QR code. Then the ‘phone can take you to the website, or send an email or text. (Most of these apps can also read other kinds of barcode too – so, for example, you can often use them to scan the barcode on a product you are interested in buying to check if it’s cheaper somewhere else.) You can also create your own QR codes with free online tools and a printer. The codes you generate let smartphone users visit your website, or express interest in your company or product. You can download the generated QR code and print it (for example on labels), or include it in documents or other literature.
Sarla :What equipment do I need to make use of them?
Dr Harman: To read QR codes you need an app for your smartphone. Probably the most widely-known iPhone app is called RedLaser, and a popular one for Android is Barcode Scanner. But there are many others for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. These apps understand the data in the QR code and send a text or email, or visit a website, as appropriate (they do ask you if you want to do that first though!). Reading QR codes with them can be a bit fiddly – but not nearly as fiddly as typing on a phone!
To make QR codes you need a website like http://www.qurify.com/en/ (again there are lots of others - type ‘create qr code free’ into Google). If you use one of these sites to create a QR code with, say, http://www.theswanseabay.co.uk/ you can create one that will open The Bay Magazine website. If instead of a URL you enter sms:1234567890?body=please send me information about your products you can generate a text to the ‘phone number 1234567890 with the message content ‘please send me information about your products’. To make things easier, some QR code creators ask you what type of code you want to create (email, web link, sms). For example the one at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ does this. If you have a phone with a QR reading app, you can check that the code you have generated works directly from your screen – you don’t need to print it out first.