Last weekend I was trying several applications to read QR Codes with the iPhone. They all do the same thing but the experience using them is very differnt. I would like to share with you my conclusions.

What are QR Codes?

They are two dimensional bar codes that store some information like URLs and addresses. In some countries they are widely use in the advertising industry to give links to additional information.

QR Code Reading iPhone Applications

I was trying four of the most popular QR Code reader applications for iPhone:

Understanding the aim of QR Codes and QR Code Readers

In order to design a better user experience you have to think what the QR Codes are for and in which context they will be used:

- QR means Quick Response, so they should be decoded fast by the code reader. That is, not only decoding, but also the application should be ready to read the code as soon as the user starts it. 

- QR Codes are used in advertisement a lot, at the street and in magazines. They do a good job because they meant to save time as the user does not have to type, for example, a URL address while she is walking or not using a PC.

Three of the four applications I tried don’t care about the previous two points. For example, 2D Sense does a great job decoding QR Codes but it fails to provide a good experience. The user needs to read and decode the QR Code fast but the application bothers with a welcome message and tries to get access to the location information, both things totally unnecessary.

Barcodes, BeeTagg Reader and 2D Sense do a great job decoding but they bother with welcoming messages and other unnecessary options. On the other side, UpCode allows the user to shoot at the QR code directly without loosing time, exactly what is needed to make the QR Code reading user experience good.

I want to point out how a good design could make an application better than other similar ones. Always go for the simple design without features the user in that situation don’t need.

The crisis is making web companies to struggle and they seem to be doing whatever they can to get more revenue (thing that I totally understand). These are particularly hard times for companies living on advertisement, like online magazines, newspapers and others. In the last months I have seen an increase in pop-ups, videos and other forms of excessive online advertisement around the world.

In the picture below, showing the website of an important German newspaper, you can see how two ads are competing for the user’s attention. This is embarrassing for the website and advertisers, and very disturbing for users.  

As this is bad for usability reasons, the whole perception and user experience of the website gets affected:

- Users have to close ads before getting to the content (the most important of an online newspaper).

- They might click on the ads while trying to close them. The website gets the money… and an irritated user too!

- This kind of advertisement could be really bad and cruel for people with disabilities and difficulties to move the mouse with precission.

Whenever you can, try to avoid abusive advertisement as much as possible, it’s not only about usability, it’s going to affect your credibility and might make users to flee to another website.