• @Gobbel2000
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    304 hours ago

    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.

  • Eager Eagle
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    1 hour ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    124 hours ago

    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.

  • Xylight
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    34 hours ago

    It is not weird. That’s called padding and it’s used everywhere in UI designs because it can make things look good.

    • @[email protected]
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      145 hours ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 hours ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 hours ago

      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.

  • @[email protected]
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    649 hours ago

    I spent 20 years in graphic design shit and wish I’d thought of something as cool as “quiet zone”.

    • MeatPilot
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      24 hours ago

      Personally I’m going to start saying “quiet zone” instead white space. I’ll probably get dumb looks anyway.

  • M137
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    35 hours ago

    The white space is too big IMO, it should be one or two squares at most. Both of the examples look really bad.

        • @[email protected]
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          4 hours ago

          Does it really scan when both timing patterns (zebra stripes between the three corner “squares”) are interrupted?

          Edit: Not even Google Lens can scan it. (Edit edit: worked fine with screenshot.) Next time, avoid the red regions when putting logos etc. on mid-size (3+1 “squares”) QR codes:

          🟥🟥🟥🟥
          🟥🟩🟩🟩
          🟥🟩🟩🟩
          🟥🟩🟩🟥

          You can rotate the code of course but not flip it.

          • Fuck spez
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            35 hours ago

            I’m not sure if a hardware barcode scanner would like it but Google Lens can read it just fine.

            • @[email protected]
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              5 hours ago

              Google Lens is indeed one of the best, and it failed for me with direct image upload (incl. transparency). It worked with a screenshot so maybe the size threw it off.

          • @[email protected]
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            05 hours ago

            Not even Google Lens can scan it

            Might be you, I just used lens to check the QR code man and it detected it just fine on my pixel 8.