QR codes: practical design considerations

There has been so much written and talked about lately regarding QR codes, but most of what I've read has focused on the basics of what they are, trends in their use, or their pros and cons. For anyone who is interested in QR codes, I've collected a few links and references that should help you get a crash course on what QR codes are, and catch you up on the basic opinions being bandied about on their usage (or not):

• What are QR Codes and Why Do You Need One? - Marc Lyne (an article from 2009, a great overview)
• OMG QR Code Madness - Phil Baumann (great, no-nonsense overview)
• Momentum is building for QR codes - Shel Holtz (recent prediction of trends, optimistic)
• 11 Reasons Why QR Codes Suck - David Wachs (Cons to QR codes)
• 11 Reasons Why QR Codes (Don't) Suck - Simbeck Hampson (Pros of QR codes, counterpoint to Wachs's article)

My LinkedIn QR Code

Where I'd like to focus my energy are on the actual design considerations for whether or not QR codes will help you solve a problem...or if they are an "ooooh shiny" technology innovation.

Let's start with what QR codes do: they are images that you can scan from a QR reader on your phone that launch a webpage that either provides you with information or prompts you to do something. For example, someone could use a QR code on their business card to launch their LinkedIn profile where  you could choose to add them as a contact. Cool, right?

But lets look at the bigger picture. Are the use of QR codes good design?

Audience analysis: you need to have a smartphone for QR codes to be useful. There is all sorts of data available on demographics of who owns smartphones, but let's make some sweeping generalizations that less represented populations of smartphone owners are the young, the old, people with low incomes, and several minority populations. Of those people using smartphones, your audience is further narrowed by those who would actually download a QR code reader app, or have purchased a phone with one already built in. And then finally, your audience would need to know what QR codes are and see the need for using them.

The audience analysis portion of QR codes is important, because many of the potential uses (that are NOT product marketing) I see for QR codes are actually most beneficial to the young, the old, and underserved populations.

Needs analysis: So, in what situations do we need to automatically launch a website?


Yeah, um...not many.

I like the LinkedIn example I mentioned above, because I think it would be more convenient to share contact info digitally than through paper business cards. I also like some healthcare related examples, like having a QR code on prescription bottles that provides all the prescribing information. It would be helpful for food labeling to start including QR codes for nutritional information. I'd love if things that required instructions (IKEA furniture, programming a universal remote, changing the fluids on my car) could launch from my phone whenever I needed them. A lot of this is "just in time" type of information and instruction that would be really beneficial to have at the ready and using a QR code to launch that type of content could be extremely useful. In essence, I'm thinking of QR codes as "job aid launchers" and I think looking at them in that capacity could be a viable and appropriate use.

I also see the opportunity to use QR codes for game design, specifically in the design of alternate reality games (ARGs) and scavenger hunt games. Again, though, the audience analysis is key...people can't play the game if they don't have the technology they need to play.

Unfortunately, what I've been seeing is mostly QR codes being used as promotional content launch points. There's two reasons why I don't think this makes sense...

1. when you scan a QR code and it launches a website, especially for promotion, the likelihood that you are in a position to actually review the content on the website is pretty small. Let's say I'm at a conference...let's say SXSW. And there are QR codes everywhere. Am I going to be walking around with my phone, scanning QR codes and standing there reading about your site? Is that information being saved anywhere for me to review later?(answer = probably not) Wouldn't my time be better spent actually talking to people and looking at the technology? And if I'm passing out QR codes, why not just pass out marketing materials that have the website address on it so that I can take it with me and review it on my computer instead of my phone?

And 2. most QR codes aren't reinforcing your brand. I've seen some customized QR codes, but for the most part, QR codes are black and white 8-bit looking boxes that do nothing to promote your brand or your messaging. If anything, they strip the messaging away, or add an additional step for your potential customers to learn more about you. Why make your customers work harder to learn about what you can do for them?

From a designer's perspective, you want to minimize the work you make people do to get to the content that is most important to them. When you're thinking about QR codes, think about your audience, think about what you're trying to accomplish, think about the actual logistics of how they are used,  and then ask yourself...are QR codes the best solution for the need I'm trying to address or the problem I'm trying to solve?

Augmented Reality Games, Alternate Reality Games, and the Future of Learning

Watch live video from RELATE Live! on Justin.tv

Thank you to Rick Zanotti and Terrence Wing for inviting me to speak today on #elearnchat. You can check out the video here...including our "prep" session at the beginning! 

It all started with a Sprite (Happy Anniversary)

Three years ago, Presidents Day was the eve of what (besides being a mom) has been the greatest adventure of my life: starting Tandem Learning.

I didn't know how starting a company would change my life in so many ways. I didn't know how it would challenge me, sadden me, inspire me, stress me out and make me feel more alive than I could have ever imagined. I didn't know how it would affect everyone around me. I didn't know that it would change the way I saw the world and saw myself.

Becoming an entrepreneur is very much like becoming a parent. You know your life is going to change, you just can't imagine how, and no one can prepare you for it.

One thing I didn't anticipate at all 3 years ago was finding the resilient partnership and friendship with my business partner, Jedd Gold.

Jedd wasn't part of Tandem from the beginning; I met him a couple months later at the same conference where I first "discovered" virtual worlds. I had flown to New York City from Orlando, where I had just attended a large client event. There had been several days in a row of going out drinking, and having flown into NYC by myself, knowing no one at the conference, and being able to count the number of female attendees on one hand...I decided that it was going to be a dry conference for me. After the first day of the conference, one of the virtual world development companies was hosting a kegger. (Yes, a kegger on the Expo floor. I know.) I didn't know anyone but I wasn't particularly eager to go spend the whole evening in my shoebox of a hotel room, so I hung around, looking for something non-alcoholic to drink. I asked the bartender (or more appropriately, The Kegkeeper). There was no water. There was no soda. There were a lot of guys in their early 20s drinking beer out of plastic cups.

One of the other women at the conference spotted me and came over to introduce herself. We were lamenting the lack of options of beverages when a guy came up to me, having clearly overheard our conversation. He said, I'll get you a Sprite. I replied, sorry, I already asked the bartender...there's nothing but beer, but thanks for the offer.

He said, I'll be back with a Sprite.

I don't know how Jedd did it...we watched him approach The Kegkeeper and a few minutes later he returned with two cans of Sprite and two plastic cups with ice. I was impressed (I now know that this isn't unusual for Jedd...he has a knack for making things magically happen). We exchanged business cards and made plans to talk after the conference about how our companies might leverage each others' services.

I'll admit, after the conference I blew Jedd off for awhile, somewhat for good reason (my emergency appendectomy) and in some part because I thought that he was just another guy looking to pick up development work for the company he was working for. Finally, we overcame our time zone issues, health issues and scheduling issues...and after a conversation that would change both of our lives, I realized that I had found the business Yin to my Yang...and here we are, three years later.

I've been fortunate to be able to work with some of my favorite people in the world over the last three years and we've traveled an interesting path. But today, I want to thank Jedd for being my rock, my biggest fan, my conscious, my editor, my manager, my critic, my friend...for not freaking out at the same time I do and for always keeping things in perspective. We have miles left to go, and I'm happy to be traveling them with you. Thank you for the Sprite. 

What IBM Watson means for learning, education, and instructional design

During the NFL Playoffs, I started to see IBM's commercial for Watson. I was interested for two reasons...first, it didn't seem like appropriate placement for the commercial (my sister used to be a media buyer so I peripherally know too much about commercial placement) and secondly, I was having a hard time caring if a computer could answer trivia questions faster than a human.

OF COURSE we've gotten to the point that a computer can beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. Isn't that what we've been working towards, since the beginning of computers? Haven't we been trying to get computers to handle sifting through large amounts of data and finding the correct answers at a much faster speed that we humans could do? Haven't we been trying to alleviate our burden of determining complex logic algorithms that lead to a "correct" answer? For questions that have a correct, single solution or, even for questions that clearly have a best answer, we have finally developed a computer that can more quickly and accurately come to that answer than most, if not all, of our brains can handle.

Yay us!

Now what?

The irony in IBM Watson being such a revelation is the juxtaposition with educational trends, specifically an increased emphasis on standardized assessment and testing. Just today in my Twitter stream, I'm seeing tweet after tweet about the US government's multi-billion dollar funding of "Race to the Top" and the emphasis on making our educational system more competitive with other countries on standardized tests. Guess what, everyone? We have actually built computers to do the work that standardized tests test for, better than we are able to do it.

So, what do we value? Do we want to continue to beat our heads against our own technological innovations and try in vain to measure ourselves against systems that will always be more efficient at performing the tasks that they are designed specifically to do? Or should we be thinking about what we, human beings, can do that no computer can? What makes us human? What makes us different from a machine?

We are emotional, creative, intuitive...we can solve complex problems with no clear right answer. We are social and thoughtful and we strive to create meaning where it doesn't currently exist. We are complex and complicated and messy and funny. Yes, we can be logical and systematic and we can memorize and recall our address where we lived in when we were 6 years old (6521 Ralston Rd, btw), but we can't always remember where we put our car keys.

I hope we never create technology that is so perfect in its humanity that we lose our own. For now, we've developed a technology that does something important: answers certain types of questions, faster and more reliably than we can. So let's stop focusing on trying to train our brains to work like IBM's Watson and instead focus on training our brains to handle the types of thinking and work that Watson can't. Let's stop focusing on standardized testing as the measure of educational success and let's focus on how we can get students to solve complex problems. Let's make sure they understand history...not so they can recall dates and names on demand, but so they can understand how the decisions of the past have led us to where we are and we can learn from the lessons of our collective history.

Let's reward risk-taking and innovation and bravery and determination. Let's instill lessons of compassion and responsibility and community and resilience. Let's facilitate communication and empathy and love. Yes, I said it: love. Let's start educating people, young and old, as people...not training them like computers or like cogs in the system. Let's think about education as a way of making us more human, not more like computers.

That, in the end, is what will save us in the Robot Revolution. In the meantime, I call Watson for my team in Trivial Pursuit.

Openness and communities

Last year, Tandem Learning had the honor of transitioning the ThinkBalm Innovation Community into the Tandem Learning Innovation Community (TLIC). The community was housed on LinkedIn and was in many ways a "closed community": you had to request to join, agree to the community rules, and then be approved by one of the moderators. Within the community, the goal was to talk about innovative technologies and their use for "serious" purposes, including business, education, etc. With membership over 500 members, it was a fairly large community and there was information being shared through member blogs and posts on a consistent basis.

One of the struggles for me with the TLIC was that it wasn't really integrated with the other social media tools I use consistently, namely Twitter and Facebook. Although it was beneficial to feel like there was a closed community that could share topics of mutual interest, I was "sharing" much more through my other social media accounts even when topics would have been of interest to the TLIC community. I suspect that other community members were doing the same.

Another struggle was with the idea of community participation and moderation. Of course we wanted as many people as were interested to join the community and I will freely admit that as long as someone said they agreed to our community "rules," they got in. But is it really up to just Tandem Learning to moderate the community? Or is it more effective for the community to self-moderate and Tandem Learning to step in when an issue is raised?

With the release of the "Open Group" option on LinkedIn, we needed to make a decision about the structure of TLIC and what it might mean for the future of the community. I want to be able to integrate our group communications with my other social media accounts and I want to connect to other members' accounts as well. I want to attract as many people as possible into our community to actively participate. And I trust the community of professionals that have joined us in the TLIC to let us know if something is happening in the community that needs to be addressed. Because of these reasons, we have decided to make TLIC an open group.

I welcome any feedback from our existing group members and I look forward to their continued participation. I also am looking forward to who our extended visibility may attract to participate in our community. I truly believe our community will be all the richer for becoming more open.

The girls in the back of the class

My first high school student teaching experience was in a 10th Grade Honors English classroom. I was in grad school, getting my Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction and teacher certification all at the same time. I decided to use the 3 week lesson as one of my graduate research projects. I had no idea what I was going to study until my first day teaching.

I was doing a lot of research and writing at the time on gender roles and media literacy, and I had decided that one of the themes I'd be teaching to those 10th graders was on gender biases and stereotypes. I had a very idyllic vision of how this would play out...these 15 year olds would be SHOCKED at how the media was manipulating them to play out stereotypical gender roles and would be OUTRAGED at how they unknowingly reinforced these stereotypes through their own choices and behaviors. And once they were so enlightened, suddenly they would no longer allow themselves to be manipulated and bamboozled.

(ha!)

My first day of teaching, I noticed a group of girls in the back of the classroom. They were clearly the "popular" girls and they were clearly not impressed with me or anything I had to say. I had done a lot of work with teenagers before and I had this intrinsic belief that they all loved me. Day one and that belief was shattered. I left class that day reflecting on their eye-rolling, note-passing, giggling and whispering as evidence that I was not the charismatic superstar teacher that I walked in that day thinking I was. I suddenly felt very uncool. And strangely, I felt like I wanted these cool kids to like me.

Day two and I had a research project. I was on a mission! I would win these girls over and engage them in such moments of learning revelations that they would start passing notes to ME! But on this second day, I noticed something I hadn't noticed on the first day. These "cool kids" were actually ostracizing the other students. Their snarky comments were dismissive of the real learning and real reflection and real contributions of the other 20 kids in that class who were there to learn. Not only was this classroom backchannel interfering with my focus, but it was interfering with EVERYONE's focus. Some of the kids were so interested in being "accepted" by these girls that they were focusing on impressing them instead of focusing on the lesson. Some of the kids were so annoyed by these girls that they openly made snarky comments back in the hope of shutting them up. Some of the kids just wanted to stay out of the classroom power struggle. I started to think of these girls as learning bullies.

I left that second day with a real challenge for myself. How could I get ALL of these kids engaged and focused on learning? How could I get them to not only listen to me, but more importantly, to listen to each other? And how could I honestly address my own personal feelings of wanted to be accepted by the "cool kids" but honor the responsibility I had to all of these students as their teacher?

Day three and I decided to call these girls on their behavior. I separated them in class so they couldn't sit together. I was the strong arm of the law. Total failure...not only did the girls hate me...all of the kids hated me. I had totally disrupted the delicate social balance of their seating arrangement and everyone was annoyed. So much for forcing mixed groups and shaking up the status quo.

Day four...I was getting to the end of the first week. I had made very little progress in the battle with the girls in the back of the class. Ignoring them hadn't helped. Exerting my authority hadn't helped. I decided I just needed to focus on engaging them. After all...that was my job. I was the teacher. It was my job to facilitate learning, to respect each student's role in that process and to support them the best way I could. So day four...I handed the classroom over to the students. It turns out, they were much better teachers than me.

Days 5 - 15? At some point we all became the girls in the back of the class. No, it wasn't The Breakfast Club. But it was a learning environment where everyone was participating and the power dynamics were balanced and not residing with a small percentage of popular, snarky girls.

I will admit readily that I am a control freak and I like to think I can fix everything. But you can't control or fix learning...and you can't control or fix social dynamics. What you can do is provide an environment and opportunities for people to engage. Too often, we look at the cool kids or the backchannel or cliques and we start feeling those emotions that used to rise up when we were in 7th grade. The truth is, in some ways, we never leave junior high.

We're all adults now, but there are still social dynamics at play in our personal and professional interactions. We still need to think about the "cool kids" and the class clowns and the jocks and the goths (and evidently the emo kids? I haven't taught in a while...) and yes, the geeks. It doesn't work to reject a group's attitudes and opinions out of hand because it doesn't make them go away. It doesn't work to bully or name call or troll...that won't change people's behavior or opinions (if anything, it usually polarizes the situation). What works? Engaging people in the process and valuing what they bring to the experience, even if their attitudes and opinions are very different from your own.

We're all in this together.

And for those wondering, 15 year olds can get shocked and outraged when they realize how gender biased all of the toys they played with as little kids actually are. It's a joy to see teenage boys playing Barbie and teenage girls racing remote-controlled Batmobiles. Not that they would have admitted that after they walked out of the classroom that day... ;)

Learning mobsters: #4sqchat

I've been one of the moderators for #lrnchat on Twitter for almost 2 years. Saying that amazes and humbles me...I've met more brilliant people and had the opportunity to learn from so many new friends through the serendipity of social media and my life is forever changed for the better because of the #lrnchat community.

On the other hand, I've been participating in #lrnchat for almost 2 years. And its really been the only Twitter chat I've participated in, besides an occasional #edchat or #hcmchat.

In retrospect, this seems absolutely silly. I've talked about in the past how I learn the most from the non-learning focused conferences I attend: gaming conferences, technology conferences, industry conferences...those are the conferences that typically get my mind whirring and my creativity flowing. So why have I not participated in any of the hundreds of chats you can now find on a regular basis on Twitter?

I don't have a good answer.

But luckily, some of my #lrnchat friends pointed out the obvious. We need to learn in places outside of our own backyard. We need to get out into the world and explore. We need to flashmob other chats!

If you don't know what a flashmob is, check out an example of one that I experienced myself by the Opera Company of Philadelphia here. The basic concept is that as people go on about their normal activities, a group of people come in and perform an organized event...and then everyone goes on about their normal activities. Flashmobs aren't intended to be disruptive...they are intended to entertain and enrich and often, to teach something, to expand people's viewpoints.

Tonight was our first chat flashmob. Our target? #4sqchat which takes place Mondays from 9 - 10 pm est. We didn't really know who all would show up...honestly, I didn't plan on participating. But 9 pm rolled around and I was online and I started to see my #lrnchat friends tweeting with the #4sqchat hashtag and I just couldn't stay away.

I will admit, I'm not an avid user of Foursquare and I have been skeptical about leveraging geolocation services for learning. Tonight, as part of the chat, I learned some things and got some ideas that expanded my viewpoint:

• Foursquare has the ability to post photos to a location. Very cool! Some practical applications of that may be:
• Running a game where people check in and take a picture of themselves or their team completing a task to score "points"
• Documenting a trip by assigning a photo to each check in. There's even a service that allows you to create a memory book based on your check in photos: Memolane 
• Businesses could market their products and services by adding photos to their business location in Foursquare.
• You don't have to check in to post a photo to a location. This could address some people's privacy concerns.
• Foursquare check ins could be set up for different locations within a conference, facilitating the creation of games at conferences and events. Think about checking into sessions, checking in at vendor booths in an expo hall, etc.
• Check ins could be set up in locations at your company to support the creation of a new hire orientation activity.

Want to learn more about Foursquare? Participate in the weekly chat, check out the chat transcript, or check out this local Indianapolis Foursquare blog: 4sqindy or this more general AboutFoursquare blog.

Another cool thing we saw at the end of the chat? Analytics! Check out this data from Tweetreach on the chat and notice some of the #lrnchatter names on the board :)

But the coolest part of participating in #4sqchat? We learned new things, met new people and quite a few members of the #lrnchat community who didn't know about our flashmob plans joined in as well! Oh, the beauty of Twitter...

We don't know where we'll show up next, but be on the lookout for the learning mobsters to crash another chat near you...