Fun with QR codes! Two things are on the top of my mind today.
My boss loves QR codes. He wants to put a QR code on every single publication we print, for any reason, or often for no reason. To this day, he does not understand that QR codes are not magic, and all they contain is a link. I can’t make the QR code “do” this, that, and the third thing he wants; I have to program our web site to do whatever it is. When he is explaining what he wants, he is inevitably tracing his fingers around in the air making a box shape, as if this means anything.
His latest brainwave was trying to make me put QR codes on internet banner ads. Which are displayed on the viewer’s screen. ~90% of which are viewing on their mobile device to begin with. I had to explain to him using small easily understandable words that you cannot make a phone take a picture of itself. (Yes, I left the topic of screenshots out of it.) The fact that the banner ad is not only inherently clickable but being clickable is really rather the entire point, and this click directs the user to anywhere we want – say, the same place as his mythical QR code – did not sink in for him.
He also doesn’t get that merely generating the pixels of the QR code does not automatically create the landing page and all of its content. He also doesn’t grok that, to the nearest decimal place, nobody scans the fucking things on our literature anyway. Like I don’t track that kind of thing.
But I have a theory as to why, now. Thing the second is that just today I had a customer tell me, “I won’t scan them QR code things because I saw on the news they’re all controlled by the Chinese government.” (Our quotes have a QR code at the top you can use to view the products therein on our web site without having to type anything. It’s practically the only genuinely useful thing we do with them.) I had to demonstrate to him right there and then that the QR code is literally just a block of text, and you can see every single damn fool character in it before you visit whatever link it is if you feel like it and/or don’t trust it. Our QR codes clearly just go to our web site, with a ?products=[list] tacked on to the end of the URL.
I am positive he didn’t get it.
I’m positive my boss still doesn’t get it, either.
On my phone, you don’t need to screenshot to use QR codes. I can just use the Google Lens app to scan it, or reverse image search something without even closing my Brave browser.
Fun with QR codes! Two things are on the top of my mind today.
My boss loves QR codes. He wants to put a QR code on every single publication we print, for any reason, or often for no reason. To this day, he does not understand that QR codes are not magic, and all they contain is a link. I can’t make the QR code “do” this, that, and the third thing he wants; I have to program our web site to do whatever it is. When he is explaining what he wants, he is inevitably tracing his fingers around in the air making a box shape, as if this means anything.
His latest brainwave was trying to make me put QR codes on internet banner ads. Which are displayed on the viewer’s screen. ~90% of which are viewing on their mobile device to begin with. I had to explain to him using small easily understandable words that you cannot make a phone take a picture of itself. (Yes, I left the topic of screenshots out of it.) The fact that the banner ad is not only inherently clickable but being clickable is really rather the entire point, and this click directs the user to anywhere we want – say, the same place as his mythical QR code – did not sink in for him.
He also doesn’t get that merely generating the pixels of the QR code does not automatically create the landing page and all of its content. He also doesn’t grok that, to the nearest decimal place, nobody scans the fucking things on our literature anyway. Like I don’t track that kind of thing.
But I have a theory as to why, now. Thing the second is that just today I had a customer tell me, “I won’t scan them QR code things because I saw on the news they’re all controlled by the Chinese government.” (Our quotes have a QR code at the top you can use to view the products therein on our web site without having to type anything. It’s practically the only genuinely useful thing we do with them.) I had to demonstrate to him right there and then that the QR code is literally just a block of text, and you can see every single damn fool character in it before you visit whatever link it is if you feel like it and/or don’t trust it. Our QR codes clearly just go to our web site, with a ?products=[list] tacked on to the end of the URL.
I am positive he didn’t get it.
I’m positive my boss still doesn’t get it, either.
Whatever, it all pays the same.
I dare you to make a QR code for something that hotlinks to another QR png!
Most bosses like this in tech are dazzled by sales team but what got your boss to get such hard-on for QR codes?
Jesus christ it must be painful working for such a massive moron.
Im so sorry. i dont know how you dont go bald from pulling your hair out
On my phone, you don’t need to screenshot to use QR codes. I can just use the Google Lens app to scan it, or reverse image search something without even closing my Brave browser.
Atleast on IOS, holding your finger over an image with a QR code will activate the QR code, so he’s not entirely off his rocker dude….
Sure, but in this context guess what happens if you don’t hold and you just tap it.
…
The same thing, but with fewer steps.