QR codes helping people stay connected.

Ever been to a symposium, workshop or other gathering where you meet intersting people but afterwards have trouble remembering who they were, nevermind how to contact them.

A method to help people get and stay connected is by using QR codes to exchange contact information. At meetings, symposiums or shows where people with common interests gather, QR codes can be integrated into the name badges to facitiltate digital information exchange betweeen participants that can be used later to contact each other.

Examples

Sarasota Bay Watershed Symposium 

The Sarasota Watershed Symposium is an example of a local area gathering of interested parties for a specific topic or objective. In this case the preservation and protection of natural resources.

GODAE COSS-TT workshop 

GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) is a global organization providing global and regional ocean analysis and forecasting systems. For an International workshop GODAE used QR codes to make it easy to exchange contact information between the International participants of the workshop.

In both examples above the QR codes can be scanned by a mobile phone and the contact information saved for future reference and use.

How it is made

Once a design for the name badge has been made, provision is made for the placement of a QR code. The list of participants is then read and using graphics automation in combination with a QR code generator the name badges with QR code are generated at the same time. This method ensures there is never a mismatch between QR code content and the information on the badge.

The examples above were made using graphics automation systems from ODOA in combination with QR code technology from QR4

If you have any questions about QR code name tags or how best to implement QR codes on name badges, please contact us.

The use of QR codes on business cards

Some say QR code business cards do not exist and that this is a fantasy. We say they certainly can and do exist and in more than one flavour as well. Lets have a look at what a QR code for a business card is and what needs to be taken into consideration before using one.

Why put a QR code on a business card
To save a person having to retype all the information into their digital contact list. However the flip side of the coin is that you will have a square 2D bar-code on your business card, and this may not be esthetically pleasant to the 'look and feel' of the card that represents you and your business.

Digital contact information
Forms and specifications of exchanging digital contact information (electronic business card) is nothing new, it was defined in 1995 the 'Versit Consortium' and was represented by Apple, AT&T, IBM and amoungst others also Siemens. It became known as the vCard specification. It was developed to make it easy to exchange contact information between platforms that supported address lists and soon was supported by most e-mail clients. It was also shortly after that dumped by nearly everyone because attaching a digital business card to a signature in an email caused an incredible increase in spam because this was an ideal way for email harvesters to get new email addresses and send more spam. So much for e-mail and electronic business cards.

With the invention of the mobile phone another standard designed for these devices appeared in the late 1990. Called the 'MeCard', it was simple and could exchange basic contact information like name and phone number.

There are two different ways of exchanging electronic contact information
The vCard has a comprehensive feature set, allowing for multiple private and business telephone numbers, websites as well as url's and even embedding image data, while the MeCard format is for fast simple basic contact information transfer.

Electronic business card QR code example:

Mecard QR Code	vCard QR Code

The contact information in the QR codes above are the same with the MeCard QR code having a smaller surface area or 'footprint', this is because of the internal data formating required to get the information in the correct format into the QR code.

Which one would you prefer
The Mecard is small in size, does not allow you to put in a company name, or a fax number nor many other business related information objects, so this can be a problem for professional use.

Size does matter
Idealy a QR code on a business card should be as small as possible and contain as much business contact information as needed, here is the first of two points where those who claim that a QR code business card does not exist may have a point. Looking at the vCard, that can contain vast amounts of information, a QR code cannot, like a balloon it has it limits in how much it can store. Making it less than the ideal transfer method to exchange information. A typlical example is the ability of the vCard to hold and transfer an image, a QR code simply does not have the capacity, and if it did, it may need a business card of large proportions to be able to print a readable QR code on it.

Vcard sounds great but has limits and creates a large footprint QR code whereas MeCard is great for personal use but serves the business community badly.

Dynamic QR codes to the rescue

Imagine if you could use the full potential of the vCard specification, like company name and details, fax numbers, even an image of yourself or your company building. It is in fact possible using a dynamic QR code and an Internet service. One company offering advanced contact and vCard information exchange is 0D0A with their managed vCard+ service.

QR Code Business Card Example

Results on an iPhone

vCard+ Screen	vCard+ contact information

This is a very clever QR code application using encrypted URL parameters to prevent accidental or forceful access to other peoples information via the internet and recognizes the different mobile phone models and compensates for their weaknesses, The best part is it supports social network links and a few extras that are not dealt with by the vCard protocol. The owner of the QR code is able to change and keep the contact information updated, So even after a move to a new address, rendering the old printed business cards obsolete, the QR code will still provide the current information.

Ideas for identity is the title of this QR code that for the QR illiterate may just look like a complex logo. But in fact it is a call for help.

The company Spiegel Communicatie & Creatie is looking for a communication adviser. Using QR codes for recruiting is nothing new anymore, in the Netherlands it is used regularly by several large companies. So what makes this one so special.

This is a serious call for a communication adviser as it appears they desperately need one.

Marketing and communication agencies in this day and age should be working with and have knowledge about new media and cross-media systems and services, including QR codes. It is always interesting to see how these tools are implemented, as it indicates the level of understanding by the way it is executed.

Breaking the golden rule: Can you read this? Can you navigate on this site?

Did someone forget to tell them that most QR codes are scanned by mobile-phones with small screens and that many only have touch screens and no other navigation options. Apparently not! Or was this done on purpose to show their ignorance and need?

If you do take the trouble to 'zoom in' and loose page oversight you see they also expect this person to be an account manager, so it is a combo job...'a creative account manager' Looking at the functional requirements for the job it would appear my expertise reaches beyond their need, however their use of QR codes clearly indicates this request for a communication adviser/account manager is desperately needed and could be a great opportunity for people who do know how to use new media systems efficiently and effectively to help this company become more efficient and effective.

Colourful QR Code solutions with QR4.

Using colour to create more attractive QR codes could be the trigger for it to be scanned or not by making the QR code stand out from the crowd.

Normal QR code	QR code with colour	Contrasted QR code	Colourized QR code

Other advantages are making the QR codes match company colour schemes to make it blend into the documents or media it is printed on for a more professional 'look and feel'. There are a few important things to keep in mind when using colours with QR codes because not all colour combinations will work, and even if some do, they may not work on older mobile devices or outdated QR Code Apps.

There is a very good reason QR codes are black and white, the reason is contrast. The bigger the difference in colour between the background and the data elements, the better is it to read. When it comes to the ultimate contrast, you cannot get better than black and white. Any other colour combination will have an effect on the contrast and thus the ability for scanner applications to read it successfully.

The golden rule when working with colours is to keep the background and foreground colours contrasting each other as much as possible. To do this we need to determine which colours 'oppose' each other and for this we can use a colour wheel.

Below is the QR code colour wheel, where 'S' is the start and 'E' is the end colour. The idea is try and choose an ending colour that is 180 degrees from your starting colour, as this should give the best results. As you choose ending colours closer to your starting colour, the contrast becomes smaller and this will effect the ability for applications to read your QR code successfully.

Wait, we are not finished yet!

This is about QR code scanner applications and the developers who build them as well as mobile devices with camera's.

Unfortunately not all mobile phone camera's are of the same quality and even more so for QR code scanner application developers. To date there are hundreds of different QR code scanners for mobile phones that can be downloaded for 'free' from a variety of on-line application stores. Our findings are that most of them lack severely in the ability to decode QR codes correctly. So do not 'just download the first best app you find!'

Having said this, I am assuming that the developers do honour the ISO specification for QR codes, and here it is clearly stated it should (must) be black and white. So who is at fault if your colour QR code cannot be read, you are !

The good old times of QR codes

Older mobile devices like my 'mini-fridge' Nokia N95 that came with pre-installed qr code readers use a trick that is still used by developers today, although it should not be required anymore....Let me explain, it's called being colourblind and this has a big impact on the ability to detect and decode QR code images.

In the past storage and processing on mobile devices was a lot more limited than the smart devices of today and some cleaver tricks were developed to make this work for QR code scanners. They used image conversion from colour to black and white before processing the image. Why? Because black and white images are digitally smaller because each pixel does not have any colour information. Because the image was smaller it could be processed faster. Today this method is still in use with some readers and this has a whole new influence on our colour wheel.

Suddenly we can see why some QR code readers may not be able to read the QR codes if we take into consideration the requirement for 'maximum contrast' we can clearly see that the selections of colours we can use in the 'colour world' could bee seen as the same 'shade of gray' in the 'black and white world. If we want to make colour QR codes for a 'black and white world' our colour contrast selection becomes even more limited.

Acoording to the specifications

QR codes should be black and white only, so taking our colour wheel and converting it to black and white based on a 50% conversion threshhold we see how a single bit image processor would see the colours. 

The good news about colour QR codes

As new generations of smart phones are replacing the older mobile devices in the market, the problem of gray-scale QR code interpretors should become less, but until the day that all smart-phones have perfect camera's and developers write ultimate intelligent QR decoding software and applications, this developer will still always test the QR codes with old legacy decoder systems. As final itam and maybe the most important tip is to always test the QR codes you create as best you can with different QR reader applications and with different types of smart-phones. Just because it works on your device is no guarantee it will work for everyone.

Colour QR Code generator list

• Website URL
• Send Email
• SMS message
• Direct Calling
• Contact Information
• Text Message
• WiFi Access
• Branding and personalization
• Geo location

Most of the QR code generators here at QR4 support the use of colour and other advanced features such as transparency and opacity. You are welcome to test generating QR codes in colour for yourself. Remember that the secret to success is to test your QR codes thoroughly. Should you have any comments, questions or need advice about using colour with QR codes, please contact us.

The sixties meet modern times as a power company uses QR codes in search of new souls.

 'Hallo Hippie' Flower Power QR Code poster in bus stops around Eindhoven.

The advert offers four months of free 'eco' or 'green' energy if you switch to this power vendor. The energy market is a flux in the Netherlands at present and all the energy providers are trying to win new souls they can sell their power too.  As everything CO² friendly is in these days, this is a big push for power vendors. Whats new here is the use of QR codes. In this particular case a well done campaign.

Benefits for the vendor: A hot prospects contact information.
Benefits for scanning the QR code: Besides 4 months free power, you also receive a solar garden light.

All of this with one simple QR code and two mobile friendly easy to use web based mobile pages. Another good example of how to use QR codes for active marketing purposes.