Demystifying QR Codes: Navigating Digital Payments for the Blind and Partially Sighted Community

Speaker 1:
Shaun of the Shed, an AMI original podcast.

Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Shaun of the Shed. I am Shaun Preece. This is my shed, and this is a show where I talk tech, especially technology that can be so helpful to us as blind or visually impaired people. I say it's a show. It's not really a show. This is it. It's just me talking to you in my shed. Yes, I know. It's all a bit weird. Anyway, today I'm going to go a little bit old school and I'll tell you for why. Over the last couple of weeks I've been lurking around on social media, as I often do, and in some of the visually-impaired groups and pages, I've noticed a couple of questions from people asking about QR codes. And also last week I find myself in a position where I had to pay for a taxi, and of course, I don't carry cash.
Who carries cash? They didn't have a card reader either, so the only way to pay was by using a QR code on the taxi driver's phone. So I thought, "You know what? This is the perfect opportunity to talk about QR codes." We've all heard of barcodes, right? They're on absolutely everything that you buy. You pick up a product, you take it to the checkout in the store, they scan it, beep, and it tells them how much it costs. That's a barcode, just a series of black lines, basically of varying thicknesses. A QR code is different. Firstly, it looks different. It's really weird. It's like a square of various patterns, but a QR code can hold so much more information than a barcode. Primarily they're used to take you to a website, but they can hold any information really. It could be instructions on a product or information about wherever you are.
This is a doctor's surgery. This is the exit. So you scan a code and it will take you off to a website. QR codes are used absolutely everywhere, adverts, signage, business cards, even inside some apps. On the Amazon Fire TV Stick, for example, if you want to sign into your Netflix account, you can simply scan a QR code, which will take you off to a website. And they were used extensively during lockdown. They were used for people to check into locations and also to read menus online so you didn't have to handle anything physically. So that's what QR codes are. They have been around for absolutely years since 1994, so nearly 30 years they've been with us. But I want to talk about how you can scan a QR code using your smartphone. Let's do it. Okay, so I've gone off and I've created my own QR code.
I know I'm so la-di-da. It's actually really easy to do. There's websites you can go to where you just type in the information you want in the QR code and it will pop an image out for you. And what I'm going to show you now is how you can use the built-in functionality of your smartphones to scan that code simply by using your camera app. Now, I say, "Simply by using the camera app." I got to be honest with you, I struggle with this a little bit. I'll just show you. It's going to become pretty obvious. Let's start with the iPhone. I'm going to ask Siri to open the camera app. Open camera. Okay, here we go. Now I'm going to point the camera at my screen where I have the QR code up. It's going to get talkative. Let's just put it that way. Here we go.

Speaker 3:
QR code detected.

Speaker 2:
QR code detected.

Speaker 3:
QR code detected. QR code detected. QR code detected.

Speaker 2:
That's very good.

Speaker 3:
QR code detected.

Speaker 2:
Yep.

Speaker 3:
QR code detected.

Speaker 2:
Yep. Thank you.

Speaker 3:
Detected.

Speaker 2:
Yep.

Speaker 3:
QR code detected. QR code detected.

Speaker 2:
You get the idea but how do I access that? Let me shut this up. If I swipe around enough, I will find a button QR code detected that I can tap on and I can choose to open that in Safari browser or I can share it with someone and it will just tell me what that QR code actually is, what that website or information is in that QR code. But I find it really difficult to navigate around the camera app as it's given me so much information and find what I need. It seems to be constantly updating itself. You may have more success than I do, but it's a little bit too hit-and-miss for me.
So that's the iPhone camera app and using that to scan QR codes. Let's try on Android. I've got a Pixel phone here, a Pixel 5, I believe. So let's open the camera app on that and see if that's any better. Okay, so now I'm in the camera app on my Pixel phone, and again, it's going to get talkative here, so prepare yourselves. Let's point it at my screen. Wow, again, straight away. And that's the beauty of QR codes. It just recognizes them so easily. And actually, this was a lot better than the iPhone experience, right? You heard it say ami.ca, and that's the website I've encoded into this QR code. Now again, how do I access that? Let me just put my finger on the screen and see where we're at. Again, just like the iPhone, I'm struggling here to actually find what to tap on to activate the information or access the information.
Dear, that was a bit of a train wreck, wasn't it? But luckily enough I found a much easier way. It's called code scanner and it is for the iPhone. Let's jump back on the iPhone and let's find code scanner. So the first thing we need to do is get to the control center of your iPhone. Once there, swipe through until you hear code scanner. This is usually at the bottom of the screen. It can be in different places depending on what functions you have in your control sensor or how you've got it laid out. If you don't find code scanner in your control sensor, go to settings, control sensor, and in there you'll find a section called more, or something like that, with a list of all the functions that you can add to your control sensor.
Swipe through that list until you hear a code scanner and double tap and it'll appear there. So I'm going to jump to the bottom of the control center by tapping onto the bottom of the screen with four fingers. There's my screen recording and I'm going to swipe to the left, and there's code scanner, easy. Let's double tap on that. Find a code to scan. Okay, so let's bring up the QR code on my computer and now let's point the camera at the screen.

Speaker 3:
Primary navigation heading level two, end banner.

Speaker 2:
And there was a little haptic feedback there when it recognized the QR code, but straight away I didn't have to tap on anything. I didn't have to do anything. It opens up the website, which is ami.ca. Now wasn't that so much easier than trying to tap around the screen or flick through the screen trying to find something to tap on? The way the code scanner works is that as soon as it recognizes the QR code, it either displays the text or if it's a website, it takes you directly to that website. And that's what I used to pay my taxi fare, because the last thing you want to do when you've got a slightly surly taxi cab driver waiting for you to pay the fare is to be mucking around with the camera app or whatever you are using. Trying to, "Just wait. Just bear with me a minute. I'll find it. I'll find it."
Because they're not very patient. Whereas with code scanner, I simply brought up the control center, tapped on code scanner, and I pointed the phone at his phone. It took me to the taxi cab website with the amount I needed to pay and a button to pay with Apple Pay. So there you go. That is code scanner. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for watching. I know this was a quick one, but as I said, this was something I saw a lot of questions in Facebook actually in the various groups and also it's something that I really found useful when I needed to, well, pay the taxi fare. QR codes are absolutely everywhere. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for watching. If you liked what you saw, then please tap that like button or subscribe if you want to see more. Anyway, I will see you next time. Thanks guys. Bye-bye.