They’re so cool. They’re so hip and trendy. They’re on urban lampposts, corporate postcards and even government information portals. They look so futuristic in that the-future-is-so-digital-it-has-to-be-this-ugly sort of way.

Hate to break it to you, but QR codes are actually pretty useless. In my colleague Jed’s words they are, “a solution looking for a problem.”

Maybe that’s a bit harsh. QR codes might be really great in certain contexts. Let’s identify those contexts:

QR Codes are awesome, if ALL of these things are true:

• Your target audience ALREADY has a QR code reader on their mobile device.
• The site you’re driving traffic to is SPECIFICALLY for mobile users.
• The target url is particularly complex and unwieldy.

…and…that’s about it.  If all three of these things are not true for your circumstance, then a QR code is not a solution, it’s a problem.

Why a problem? Well, because it *looks* like a solution, but really, it’s not. If the destination url is any reasonable, human-readable length, then it’s certainly easier for your user to just type that in to a mobile browser than to try, fail, realize they have to install a QR code reader app, find and install an app, then fire it up and wait for it to send them to their browser, only to discover that your content is not really ideal for a teeny, tiny little mobile screen.

By using a QR code, you’ve increased the number of exit points (and the incentive for your audience to use them) by an order of magnitude. That’s a problem.

We know this sounds like quite a heavy-handed indictment, but we at Measured Voice are passionate about helping our clients use the internet in ways that make sense. The moments where QR codes make sense are so limited, we have no choice but to point out that in almost every case they make more problems than they solve.