Where a QR code to your page earns its place

Where a code beats a typed address

Use a code wherever the address would otherwise have to be read, remembered and typed. Skip it wherever a tappable link already exists. That test settles most of the argument; the honest cases look like this.

• Packaging and inserts, where the customer already has the product in their hands.
• A table card in a cafe or a salon, at a moment when someone is waiting anyway.
• A shop window, which keeps working after closing time and while people walk past.
• A business card, where the code carries everything that does not fit on the card.
• A conference badge or a lanyard, where typing is awkward and the exchange lasts seconds.
• A printed poster, a flyer, or the sign above a market stall.

What these share: the person is physically near the surface, they have a phone in their pocket, and there is no link to tap. The code removes the typing, which is the step where people give up.

Where it is decoration

A code on a screen the viewer is already holding is a step backwards. They cannot scan a phone with that same phone, and a link would have been quicker anyway. Put the address there as text, or use the platform’s own link field.

A code in a story or a short video has the same problem plus two more. It is on screen for a few seconds while the viewer is scrolling, at a size that may not resolve, and by the time a second device is found it has gone. Slides shown to a room fail for a similar reason: from the back row the code is too small to read.

Size, contrast and distance

The working rule from print is that a code should be about one tenth of the distance it will be scanned from. Half a metre, which is a card in the hand, wants roughly five centimetres. A poster read from three metres wants thirty. Round up: a code that is slightly too large costs nothing, while one that is too small is a blank square.

Leave the quiet zone — the empty margin around the code, about four modules wide, a module being one of the smallest squares. Scanners use that margin to find where the code ends. Text, a border or a photograph pressed against the edge is a common reason a code will not read.

Contrast matters more than colour. Dark code on a light background, never the reverse, and never a light code over a busy photograph. Matte stock reads better than gloss, which bounces room light straight into the camera.

The temptation to put a logo in the middle is worth resisting, or at least measuring. Error correction lets a code survive some damage, but every covered module spends part of that budget. A code that scans on your desk can fail on a wet window at an angle. If you do it, keep the logo small and test on several phones.

Point it at something permanent

A printed code cannot be edited. That one fact should decide the destination. Send it to a page you control and can change — your own link page — rather than to a campaign URL, an event listing, or a shortener you might stop paying for.

This is the shape that fits: the address stays fixed while the contents change. A code printed on a box this spring still works next year, and the page behind it shows the current menu, the current offer, the current profiles. Ours sits in the share panel, and the address behind it never changes.

Before it goes to the printer

• Print it at final size on an ordinary printer and scan that, not the file on your screen.
• Stand where a real person will stand, and scan from an angle as well as head on.
• Try an old phone with a cheap camera, and try a dim room.
• Read the address after it opens. A typo in a URL survives the printing process perfectly.
• Put the address in plain text under the code, for anyone who would rather type it.
• Check that the destination page loads quickly on a mobile connection, since scanning happens away from Wi-Fi.