It’s time for the second article in the QR Codes For Businesses 5 part series. I hope you found article one informative and now have a good idea of how QR codes came to be. In today’s post we are going to talk more about how QR codes function and how they compare to their counterpart, the barcode.
As we discussed in our last post, the QR code is just another, more sophisticated, version of the barcode. We see barcodes everywhere, they a universal standard for product identification on just about every consumer product found globally nowadays.
What makes using QR codes a good idea for business owners is the amount of data that can be store inside them. While the standard bar code can only store a fixed amount of numbers, the QR code can store much more, including things like a hidden sales message for example.
With the advent of high definition cameras available in most smart phones these days it’s possible for consumers to decode anything stored inside a QR code. You only need to have a special program (app) that quickly decodes QR code in order unlock it’s secret message.
With the amount of the data that can potentially be stored in a QR code, allows business owners to put special announcements, promotions, discounts, coupons and more inside them for consumers to find. Once they have correctly decoded what the message says, they can be enticed to take full advantage of the special offer.
We learned in our last lesson that when you really take a look at any QR code, it looks just like a random bits of black dots within a square that has several smaller squares inside it. All of those dots and squares are the actual data that is written in it. We know that in a computer, the system of communication of the computer is binary.
For those who aren’t familiar with what binary is, it is just a series of zeros and ones arranged in a repeating patterns and translated words. The QR code is done in a similar fashion to the basic language of the computer.
Most of the time, you have dots representing 1 and the blank spaces representing zeros. A typical QR code will be read starting from the lowest level of the box, the lower right hand corner and proceeds upwards vertically.
After one line has been translated, the reading takes place going down one column to the left. The reading always goes from right to left and starts from the lowest point going up. Since most computers nowadays have a lot of power, it is easy for most programs to translate what those dots and spaces are actually telling you.
Without going into the principles of determining and decoding a QR code, it would suffice to say that the program uses a form of algorithm to analyze those dots and spaces to form what message is all about and what is it trying to tell you.
Unlike the typical barcode, the QR code needs a more sophisticated reader to recode it and it is more time consuming to make it for particular product, unlike barcodes, which have barcode reader and printers abounding in the thousands for use in business right now.
That’s it for today’s article. In our next post we will be talking about how to integrate QR codes into your business.
Again, I appreciate your joining me for this short article series. If you have any questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at anytime. I will be glad to help.
