Sometimes you come across a design that is sheer simplicity, could not be easier to use and it just works. That QR code you will not be surprised takes you to this very website!

The website that I got it from is simpleqr.xyz. Just paste or type in your URL and a QR code appears before your eyes.

This is slightly off-topic for this site and no its not an advert – just a recommendation of a useful website. The thing is QR codes are quite complex (understatement).  This is quite a nice visual description.

This however is a very detailed explanation of how to create a QR code in 10 steps and I wouldn’t be surprised if its the method used in simpleqr.xyz.

I remember seeing this explanation a few months ago and no I don’t have a perfect memory. Instead, many of the websites I’ve found are through hacker news. Even better though is this search engine that searches hacker news. I used it to find that QR website.

There are innumerable free QR apps on smartphones so good ahead and verify the QR code!

There’s an elegance about QR codes though it’s not exactly steganography (hiding data or images inside something else) but the fact that you can’t understand it without an app is quite clever. I had an idea once of making a Choose your own Adventure EBook using QR Codes to navigate around a website.

Text and URLs

QR codes can hold a lot of information. Would you believe it if I told you that the QR below has all this blog text (about 230 words) up to the Text and URLs title at the start of this paragraph? Try it!

Also I compressed the PNG file but it still works perfectly. Here’s a screenshot of the QR app that scanned it.