Tag: quick response codes

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.

The hope was that the smartphone friendly barcodes will help to help locals learn their history.

As the use of QR codes increases among historical buildings and sites, the Boone County library has implemented the barcodes to help to link the community with their local history.

The project is being called the Chronicles of Boone County and works as an online local encyclopedia.

Kaitlin Mullikin, a local history associate, is at the heart of this project, which employs QR codes to provide information to local smartphone users. She explained that the barcodes have already been seen on historical roadside markers all around Boone County, and that they are also on a number of Burlington historic buildings.

When the QR codes are scanned, they link the user directly to the Chronicles mobile website.

There, the smartphone user who has scanned the QR codes will be able to see an overview of the building, event, or person that is related to the location of the barcode, and will provide links to the sources that were used to provide that information.

According to Mullikin, the links that are provided within the descriptions themselves help to demonstrate the connection that exists among the events, places, and people throughout Boone County. She said that she first came up with the concept when she was a Northern Kentucky University public history graduate student.

She explained that she was looking for a capstone project and that one of her co-workers at the library had recently attended a webinar that had provided her with information about location-based digital collections that use geolocation through GPS coordinates. The library had already implemented QR codes for other purposes at that time.

Mullikin explained that it was “the path of least resistance” for providing this information to the public. She stated that “the most interesting part of studying history is reading primary sources – sources from people there at the time or first person accounts.”

She also pointed out that people who are interested in learning more about the information that they have seen, after having viewed the general description that is provided by scanning the QR codes, it is possible for users to look at the sources. Then, they can read more by using the books that were identified on that list.