QR Code Comeback

In museums and beyond, QR codes are having a comeback.

They’re not new. They were invented a generation ago to track parts on Japanese assembly lines. QR = “Quick Response”. They got big in Asia.

US marketers tried to popularize them 10 years back. A solution in search of a problem, they flopped. Bad judgment abounded. (Do not put a QR code on the front of a moving bus.)

Then two things happened. All smartphones got QR readers in their cameras in 2017. And 2020 made humans never want to touch restaurant menus again.

The QR code is back. (Bad judgment is back too. Feeling brave? Google “QR code tattoo”.)

The good news: visitors use them.

If we have something our visitors will truly want to do — repeat, truly want to do — with their personal devices in our exhibitions, they are a solution.

The bad news: visitors use them.

When those personal devices come out, we’ll have to win their attention back again. Didn’t we already have to do that — to get them to come?

Here’s the thing:
There are now a lot of reasons to use QR codes.

And even more reasons not to.

Warmly,
Jonathan