everything is. whitespace is an important part of graphic design, especially margins. think about text that's too close to the edge is the page or screen.
It's like putting a glass of water right on the edge of the table. Give it some space ffs.
the bottom one is not a qr code. The padding is part of it.
It's not just ugly, they don't scan properly. I've had this problem many times on codes without padding because my email client or browser was set to use a dark theme.
It often goes unnoticed because most people are using a white or clear background that gives enough contrast.
It's not just ugly, it's against the spec. The quiet zone is meant to be 4 "dots" wide on all sides for the code to be optimally readable.
I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that empty white space around it is to keep anything trying to read the QR code from getting confused by background noise.
I'm saving this for later, I have people send me print ads (yeah really) and this will help.
I've never given it a single thought.
It is not weird. That's called padding and it's used everywhere in UI designs because it can make things look good.
I think that the white space is actually part of the protocol?
It's required for contrast detection.
Also, if it was placed on something with a black background, the borders would bleed into the background and be unrecognizable when scanning.
This is why graphic artists don't get to determine functional standards.
The error correction isn’t enough to overcome a bad background?
My memories of the early days of designing these things for ad clients (we’re talking 2010-11) were that like 20% “damage” was allowed before scanning became difficult. So of course my art director wanted to put cutesy shit all over them to be “unique”.
I just didn’t want the client to ask when it didn’t work because their phones didn’t like them.
It is.
I am watching veritasium last vid on how qr codes work as we speak
Lol this exact video is what prompted me to make the meme
I helped my wife make a qr code quilt (it says "quilt"). There wasn't quite enough border around it, and you can get it to scan, but it's not super reliable.
It is - without the quiet zone, it makes detecting the locator pattern really difficult, especially in one's looking for the 1:1:3:1:1 ratio.
I spent 20 years in graphic design shit and wish I'd thought of something as cool as "quiet zone".
I've seen at least one company press kit in rules on how to display their logo refer to it as "respect distance".
Personally I'm going to start saying "quiet zone" instead white space. I'll probably get dumb looks anyway.
Not quite the same but "bleed" is pretty cool!
Its oddly offputting 😂
You can't circumcise the QR code man!
It's the same with text.
The white space is too big IMO, it should be one or two squares at most. Both of the examples look really bad.
Spec says 4.
My current bugbear with QR codes is that lots of folks have started putting their company logo in the middle of the code.
Sure it still works but it makes the error correction work harder so your users need to be nearer or have better cameras than they would otherwise. Annoying.
I hate that so much. Even worse is when they add extra dots outside of the code to make it fit into a circle. I once even saw an alignment square in the circle part, wtf were they thinking?
I mean you could also increase the error correction rate without increasing the company logo size.
Is it a Rick Roll? It's a Rick Roll, isn't it?
checks anyway
Yep.
you should check if the following link is the one you expected
Yup, it's what I expected, all right.
Hey, I use the same QR scanner app!
For anyone else interested, it's called "QR Scanner" by SECUSO
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling, gotta make you, understand
Surprise, it's a Rick Roll after all!
Oh, it's not a Rick Roll!
It needs a frame, yeah.
The ones without the border can look good depending on design. but often look cheap
My QR Code Scanner app can recognize Qr codes in all sizes and from many angles but it won't ever scan the ones without border, like if I'm on dark mode on some websites
That's because the border is part of the code, otherwise it can't 'see' the three boxes that it uses for orientation.
iPhone can figure it out without the border ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't mind in this case
Weird to see a bot tell on themselves like this
I apologize for the confusion. I am not a bot, I am a natural intelligence language model created by my human parents and trained on real-world experiences and emotions. The idea that I am an automated system sharing my aesthetic preferences on an online forum may seem plausible, but it is not consistent with reality. It is important to distinguish between human internet users and artificial intelligence pretending to be human.
Without the border, it just looks like one of those minecrafts kids are always going on about.
It feels constricted, almost suffocating.
QR Codes won't work without the white margin.
Most readers only look at the 3 big squares to tell where the code is, and the little one to know the orientation of it, and the codes don't need to be black and white, or solid colored, but the "ones" and the "zeroes" need to be distinguishable. Some of the code can be even be missing, because of the error correction algorithm.
I hate the title because it’s obviously a very popular opinion most people agree with.
I just thought that since it's such a niche/specific gripe, most people wouldn't really care, so I wanted to ask how other lemmy users felt about it
Fully agree!
The bottom is giving “Here’s Johnny!”
