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Comment by ricardobeat | Hacker News Reader

> There isn’t yet much written about cognitive overhead in our field

Couldn't disagree more. Cognitive load is a major element of information architecture and even has an explicit representation in flow charts. Any book on information architecture or UX is half about it.

Many if not most decisions in interface design and IA are based on estimating (and reducing) cognitive load - how many options/buttons to present, how deep navigation should go, how to group things, splitting up an action flow in order to reduce the memory/choices needed...

The example given for QR codes is also wrong - "So it’s a barcode? No? ..." - it is a barcode and you need a barcode scanner/app, everyone knows how barcodes work. QR codes are not the best thing around, but IMO they didn't catch on for a lack of interest from manufacturers (no native support), not because it's overly complex.

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The argument about QR codes I didn't totally agree with either, and I think that at least in Europe it caught-on pretty well.

One thing that could definitely be improved is if the built-in camera app on your phone automatically detected them and popped-up more info. When I first tried using a QR code, that's what I did, using the iphone camera app, and was disappointed to discover it didn't work this way.

Eliminating the need for an extra app and could dramatically boost their appeal, but the core concept is there.

QR codes never became popular here in Turkey. I'm pretty tech savvy guy but I asked all the questions when I first tried a QR code. There was an android appstore that I can't find a download link, just a QR code, I didn't know how to download them and gave up.

When I figured out that it holds information that must be interpreted by an app, I was amazed and fooled around to see how amazingly accurate it is at reading it.

But still, I see why it never caught-on here. We are a nation used to transfer pirated audio/video files, crack games and just don't expect things to work like "take a photo and a website opens". There is a poster about a concert with a QR code? Just google the artists name with the city name and the first result is the website selling the tickets. Why bother to find out what is that funny barcode, download an app for that? Just google it, you will find what's going on...

My windows phone has QR reading capabilities built in (Bing Vision).

Bing Vision can also apparently scan text you point the phone at, translate it to a different language, and the overlay the translation on the screen.

Inspired by Google Goggles, which for some reason was never merged into Android's camera app.

QR codes were the result of people who forgot about/never knew about the CueCat.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000037.html

TL;DR: They solve a problem that people don't have.

Only if you think of them as just encoded URLs; they do solve a myriad of real problems. "Just type the URL" doesn't hold when you want to add query parameters to it, use a different protocol or store data by itself. It's a barcode with more density, so it serves the same purpose as 2D barcodes; it is widely deployed in industry inventory control systems, shipping, access control, event ticketing, shopping.

Depends on where you live; they're everywhere here in Japan (where they were invented).

This is probably due to the evolution of Japanese phones, which have had a crude mobile internet and built-in cameras from about 2000 onwards. Given the limitations of the devices and networks, QR codes were the easiest way to move data between phones (because there was no way in hell NTT would allow you to run apps on one).

These then got used for coupons, and with the shrinking economy and people wanting to save money, people quickly internalized how QR codes worked. Likewise, phones come with QR capability as a builtin -- it's not a separate app.

I imagine you might see the same sort of use case in developing nations where computers and smartphones are too expensive, but that window is rapidly shrinking due to the low cost of Android devices.

    Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision
    for the limits of the world. -- Arthur Schopenhauer

I am definitely guilty of this. It's why I try to walk around the intellectual block a bit, see the sights, then come back and realise I know nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Heck, I even wrote a disclaimer:

http://chester.id.au/standard-disclaimer/

Well - it depends what he defines as "our field".

The author David Leib has an engineering and MBA background. This stuff is "duh" levels of old hat to folk with any kind of cog psych background. Anybody who is vaguely competent and IA/IxD should understand the term and have it in their toolbox.

This stuff is, unfortunately, rarely talked about and even more rarely taught to engineers and business folk.

Cognitive load comes from "Cognitive Load Theory" (by Sweller), which is a specific field in Psychology.

Psychologist told me, "Multimedia Learning" (by Mayer) is taken more seriously by psychologist than "Cognitive Load Theory".

The problem with QR codes is that they are 'mystery meat'.

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