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It’s nice when things just become quietly, abundantly useful.

QR codes have gone from something people plastered over business cards and adverts in failed attempts to appear cutting-edge, to the default pattern for moving information along the following interaction:

a web transaction → time passes → queuing up for something → human interaction → scan → some sort of change of state.

Quickly thinking back over the past year I’ve:

  • Printed a paper ticket and had it scanned using an abnormally large laptop in a rainy queue at The Fall gig at Electric Brixton.
  • Had a PDF scanned to get on the Amtrak Coast Starlight.
  • Had a printed ticket scanned using adapted phone scanner in the queue for some club in Portland and Bob Mould / Liars at Village Underground.
  • Waved a code embeded in an app against an entry gate to the Eurostar.
  • Printed out a label and stuck it to a package to Amazon via Collect+
  • Had a an email scanned on my phone queing to see a film at the Ritzy.
  • Had a ticket in Apple’s Passbook scanned on the way in to see a baseball game
  • Scanned my laptop screen using my phone to load a TOTP security token to a Yubikey
Date
January 14, 2015
Next
The challenge for web designers in 2015 (or how to cheat at the future) This is a second attempt at articulating this issue, and was inspired by a conversation with @psd who also pointed me at a TEDx talk entitled A time
Previously
Time to start designing and demoing mobile first? I’ve always had a bit of a problem with responsive design. It too easy to assume the most important context is the size of the screen, too easy to