Somebody is blocked in. The lift has stopped. A pipe is leaking into the car park. In every case the person standing there needs to reach whoever can fix it, and their options are a phone number on a faded sign, a security desk that may be unstaffed, or giving up.
A QR code on the notice removes the hunting.
Pick the right code for the situation
| Situation | Best code type | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Blocked-in car, windscreen card | Phone | They want to speak to the driver now |
| Report a building fault | Website, pointing at a form | You need the details written down |
| Unstaffed reception or gate | Phone | Somebody needs a person |
| Anonymous complaint | Website, pointing at a form | A form is private; a call is not |
| After-hours contact | SMS | A text waits politely until morning |
The rule of thumb: if it is urgent and human, use a phone code. If it needs details you will act on later, use a form.
A phone code opens the dialler with the number filled in. A website code can point at a Google Form that captures location, category, a description and a photo — which is far more useful than a voicemail saying "there is a problem on level three".
Windscreen notices
For a card you leave on a car, a phone code is almost always right. The person is standing in a car park wanting to move, not fill in a form.
Do not put your personal mobile number on a card left in public unless you are comfortable with that — the card can be photographed, kept, and shared. If it is a business, use the business line. If it is a residential building, use the management contact.
Print the number as text next to the code as well. The person may want to save it, or may be on a phone that will not scan.
Report-a-problem forms
If you manage a building, a form beats a phone line for anything non-urgent. Build it in Google Forms and keep it to four fields:
- Where exactly (a dropdown of floors or areas beats free text)
- What kind of problem (a short list)
- Description
- Photo upload
That last one is the reason a form wins. A photo of the leak tells your maintenance contractor more than three phone calls will.
Check the form does not require a sign-in. A resident who lands on a Google login page will not report anything — they will complain to somebody else instead.
Wording is most of the job
A bare code on a sign gets ignored. Name the problem it solves, in four or five words:
- Blocked in? Scan to call the driver
- Lift out of order? Report it here
- Leak, damage or fault — tell us
- Gate not opening? Call security
Put it above the code, in text large enough to read at whatever distance the sign is meant to be read from.
The physical side
These signs live in car parks, stairwells and outdoor walls, which are the worst conditions for a printed code:
- Weatherproof it. Laminated, or a proper outdoor sticker. Paper in a car park lasts weeks.
- Matte only. A glossy sign under a car park light is a mirror.
- Bigger than indoors. Car parks are dim and people scan from a distance. 10 cm minimum on a wall sign; 3-4 cm is enough on a windscreen card held in the hand. See the print size guide.
- Higher error correction. Outdoor signs get dirty, scratched and sun-faded. Raise the level to Q or H — the error correction guide explains the trade-off.
- Mount it flat. Not wrapped around a pillar or a pipe.
Test where it will live
Car park lighting is the thing that catches people out. A code that scans perfectly at your desk can be unreadable under a dim sodium light at the far end of a basement.
Take the printed sign to the actual spot, at the actual time of day it is most likely to be used, and scan it from where a person would stand. Then do it again at night. The pre-print checklist has the whole routine.
One thing to plan for
The code is static, so the number or link is fixed. If the management company changes, or the contact number does, every sign has to be replaced.
For a building with many signs, point them at a short URL on a domain you control rather than a phone number — then you can change who the page routes to without touching the signs. The reasoning is in can you edit a QR code after printing.
Make a phone code or a link code, free and permanent.