Buildings’ Stories Told Through QR Codes

When you are moving around in a foreign place during your vacation, don’t you just wish that there was a way that you can easily find information or related history that is unique to the place on your mobile phone so that you can save it and read it later? Don’t you just hate getting out of your hotel room only to discover, when you are already in the cab heading to the next attraction, that you left your guide book behind in the room?

All of this can be solved if you have a smartphone. Through the grapevine, we heard that the tourism authorities of Spain created QR Codes and have gone ahead to place them in popular tourist hotspots to help tourists understand more about the history behind these important landmarks.

And Spain is not the only place to have done this – accordingly, quaint little Quincy town in Illinois have also done the same thing too at popular attractions. Quincy is popularly known for its historical buildings. Many of the said QR Codes can be found at its historical buildings located at the downtown business district. When the codes are scanned, mobile phone owners can pull out important historical data and save them to view them on the spot or saved for later reading.

It is a pity that the move wasn’t more widely spread – the Historic Quincy Business District planners have pinned down approximately thirty buildings that had significant history to tell and placed QR Codes on them. We are not sure if the codes have been placed at a visible area so, if you have seen or have scanned them in the past, please do come share your experience with us in the comments section.

The authorities have expressed their wish to increase the number of QR Codes in the district in the future and have pointed out that this maiden project will continue to grow.

These QR Codes are customized to bring mobile phone users to websites, images, landing pages, mini sites, videos or just a simple Wikipedia page (if there is one) online. Each of the QR Code leads mobile phone users to unique videos that is relevant to the building and they are about a couple of minutes long. So, it is not too long and just long enough to deliver enough information to visitors.

Placing the QR Codes there literally bring the buildings to life and gives visitors a far more enriching and educational time when they are there. There are stories about these buildings that needs to be told and we believe that the move, whether it is in Spain or in Quincy, will only help tourists understand and appreciate the buildings’ history and architecture even more.