Beyond the Menu: Maximizing the Use of QR Codes

The evolution of the QR code has been something of a full-circle journey since it exploded on the global scene a little more than a decade ago. Funny-looking, pixelated Rorschach blots were suddenly plastered on seemingly every product and piece of signage a consumer might happen upon, and the public was eager to explore new interactions with their still-novel smartphones.

Too often, what customers found was a clunky experience marked by poor scanning results, slow click-throughs and the need to download third-party apps just to engage with the expected content. As users discovered Google and learned best practices for finding sought-after information, QR codes began to feel superfluous – an extra or unnecessary step for consumers to get where they wanted to go.

Just when it seemed QR codes might go the way of the pager or MySpace, improvements in design were followed soon after by the pandemic. In the restaurant and hospitality industries, that meant the prioritization of touchless…