Tag: american qr codes

The U.K. firm is hoping to enhance the information available on grave stones.

Since the dawn of time, humankind has wondered about the mysteries related to death and since the beginning of society, efforts have been made to try to memorialize those who have died, with QR codes being the latest effort in that regard.

These quick response barcodes are being used by a growing number of cemeteries on their grave markers.

In this effort, a company called Hyphenalia, from Tonbridge, Kent, U.K. is now working to add QR codes to gravestones and murals, so that people who are visiting these grave markers will be able to learn more about the deceased individual who is buried or memorialized there. The company is owned by a woman named Wendy Nash.

This use of QR codes is appearing on a growing number of grave sites across the United States, and the world.

Headlines have been made from a number of American cemeteries that are now offering QR codes as an added feature on their gravestones, but they are also appearing in places such as China, and even in Wales at a cemetery for war veterans.

According to Nash, she came up with her own idea for using QR codes on gravestones “because I have always had a fascination with headstones and eventually I thought to myself ‘is that it? Am I just going to be a name on granite?” She pointed out that for most people, a name and a date is all that is available to tell visitors about the deceased individuals to whom the grave markers are making reference. She feels that it is “a shame and a wasted opportunity.”

It is the hope of Nash that this will provide future generations the ability to avoid the current struggle with making sure that the achievements of ancestors are not forgotten. The QR codes provide families with the ability to use the internet to share a much larger amount of information about their deceased loved ones than their names, the years in which they were alive, and a possible additional word or two.

American smartphone users are more likely to scan than those in the U.K., France, and Germany.

A recent survey by Pitney Bowes has shown that an American smartphone user is more likely to scan QR codes than those in Western Europe, no matter what the medium of delivery may be for those codes.

The results of this survey support those that were produced by other researchers at the same time.

The Pitney Bowes survey included the participation of 1,000 people from Europe, and 2,000 from the United States. When the QR codes were included in print magazines, almost twenty percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 scanned it. Similarly, 36 percent of participants from that country who were between the ages of 25 and 34 scanned one.

The results produced by eMarketer regarding Western European QR codes scans were notably lower.

Among Europeans, when QR codes were printed in magazines, Germany had the next highest percentage of scanners, where 27 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 used the barcodes. Among those between the ages of 25 and 34, 23 percent scanned them.

Overall, it was the respondents in the young adult category who had the greatest likelihood of scanning QR codes in a magazine. Among the participants in the survey, 27 percent in that age bracket had tried at least one. Those were the consumers who had a tendency to hold the greatest familiarity with barcode scanning on various other forms of printed materials, as well. Those included product packaging, posters, and mail. In fact, 21 percent said that they had tried all three of those.

They were, however, also the group who were the least likely to scan QR codes that were presented on a digital screen such as in an email (9 percent), on television (7 percent), or on a website (13 percent).

While they may not have gone mainstream in Europe, QR codes are still widely used in both the United States and in the European countries that were included in the survey. comScore recently reported that the number scanners of these barcodes in Germany had reached 5.1 million, there were 3.4 million in Spain (not included in Pitney Bowes’ survey), and 3.3 million in the U.K.