The Jelly Blog / All About QR Codes

All About QR Codes

Since the release of QR codes in 1994, there has been widespread use in all different industries, starting with the auto industry. Using QR codes to identify items made the whole production process easier.

The QR Code did not start to rise in popularity until around 2002, when phones started supporting QR code readers. With the easy access to the average user, QR codes began to rise in popularity, and continue to become more and more prevalent (you can view the popularity of QR Codes on the Google Trends website.)

If you would like to learn more about the history of QR codes, starting in Japan, check out the history of QR codes on the QR code website.

How They Work

There are a lot of cool features that set QR codes apart from other types of barcodes.

• QR codes don’t have a specific orientation - the are 3 squares in the corners that help orient a camera to a QR code, meaning you can scan a QR code from any angle and get the same result
• QR codes can contain any type of data - QR codes enable people to encode any type of information, supporting alphanumeric characters or binary, which is the rawest form of data that a computer can store.
• QR codes are easy and free to generate - although the company DENSO WAVE owns the patent for QR code technology, they have a policy of letting anyone use the technology however they want. Many sites, including Jelly URL, offer built-in QR code generators. In January of this year, Google Chrome released an update that incorporated a QR code generator (with a cute little dinosaur in the middle).

Should You Use a QR code?

According to multiple studies, around 20-30% of people surveyed had recently used a QR code, and that number seems to be rising recently.

When viewing something that’s not on a computer, it can be much easier to scan a QR code instead of typing in a link. When using a QR code, it’s best practice to include the link below the code in case someone does not know how to use the QR code or does not have easy access to a smartphone with QR code reading capabilities.

QR code popularity is on the rise, and when designing a brochure or handout, it is definitely worth at least considering including a QR code. It make it easier for someone to visit your links, and there’s really no downside, except maybe the small amount of extra space it takes up.

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