【明報專訊】Quick Response (QR) codes have become more and more ubiquitous. A technology that was originally invented for fast and accurate inventory checks has now been incorporated into many usages in our daily life. Developed first by a Japanese car company, the QR code replaced the traditional barcode because the former offers a higher capacity for information encoding and storage. For consumers like us, the QR code is attractive for obtaining more detailed information from, say, a piece of advertisement or promotional message, usually for a later read if we are busy with something in the middle of the day. For the advertisers, while the QR code does not replace the design of the advertisement, it has indeed changed the way advertisers think about visual complexity. Some marketing researchers have proved that the less complex the visual design in the ad is, the more likely the viewer will scan the QR code. But besides serving the consumer market, in what interesting ways has the QR code appeared, and for what purpose?
