Designing in the browser
There has been a debate raging for quite a while now: Should designers know how to code? So far, I’ve stood on the side of: designers should know about the tech they are using to know its potential and use it well.
I browse around the web a lot, and more often than not, want to quickly jump between my desktop and my phone. Either I’ll be chatting, or over SMS, in the middle of composing an email or the lights cut out and I hadn’t finished reading. Whatever the case, trying to get the page from my computer to my phone is a fairly frustrating mix of re-searching, copying a long, strange URL or even emailing myself. The magic solution? QR Codes.
QR Codes are small images with text data embedded. Your camera phone can quickly read them and show a URL, vCard, or any other data really. They’re big in Japan where they started, but are starting to spread; often also called 2D bar codes.
After doing a fair amount of searching, I couldn’t find a one-click solution to very simply displaying a QR code for the page I’m currently on. So I wrote a quick version using a Google’s really handy online chart service that generates them and tied it up to display over your current content. It’s a bookmarklet, so it should work on any browser you have – yes, you can even use it on your phone to transfer to another phone!
Just drag that link into your bookmark bar and click it when you’re on the page you want. A QR Code will pop up over the content that you can instantly read with your phone.