The hubby and I have somehow been roped into helping our local National Trust property set up some QR codes.

One minute the property manager was telling us how they were thinking of putting up some ‘bar code thingys’ the next we were with a ranger talking about a setting up a trail of QR codes!

It’s not actually as bad as all that. I’ve thought for a while that visitors to the NT land around us would benefit from being able to access 24-hour, accurate, engaging information about the things they’re looking at. So now it’s time to get involved.

We’re still a way off from setting up the codes but some of the things I need to think about are:

• Having the most interesting content with the quickest loading time: Not only do I need to consider the fact that internet reception isn’t great in the village but also that some smart phones aren’t great with video/ images so it would be best if the pages are mainly text.
• Where are the web pages going to be? My heart says Wikipedia but my head says the team might want to keep them on the NT website. If that’s the case then we could still create codes for things like architectural styles, landscape features or even types of plants using Wikipedia pages.
• Are the web pages mobile friendly? The NT pages don’t seem to adjust automatically for mobile. Visitors aren’t going to want to spend time resizing and navigating pages so a simple, mobile site would work best.
• What about language? If I use QRpedia to create the codes it will automatically choose the most relevant language Wikipedia page for the user or offer a Google translate alternative.

Thanks to Andy Mabbett who knows all about this stuff and has been answering some of my questions.