Manchester Art Gallery using 2D barcodes

If you were to visit the Revealing Histories: Remembering Slavery trail at Manchester Art Gallery, you would see what appears to be messed-up mini chessboards next to some of the objects on display. These are actually a type of barcode, technically known as a 2D Quick Response code.

By emailing a photo of one of the barcodes from your phone to a special email address at the gallery, your phone will show you a specially-formatted web page that contains more information about the object you’re interested in.

The web pages you view on your mobile also give you the opportunity leave feedback, but unlike a paper form its all done electronically.

The barcodes are part of a trial being run by Manchester Art Gallery to find out how useful providing information via mobile devices can be to visitors, and how it can complement or even replace information printed on paper.

2D (two-dimensional) barcodes are very popular in Japan, where they commonly appear on posters, magazine and newspaper ads as a quick automatic link between print and online media. They are useful because they don’t require you to type a website address or even remember the name of what you’re interested in.

Originally used in inventory management and product tracking in manufacturing industries, the inclusion of software on mobile phones that can read the 2D barcodes has spurred the development of a range of software applications that take advantage of them.

Around half the mobile phones in Japan ship with software that can read these codes and they are increasingly available for phones sold in the UK.

The trial is part of research being undertaken by Julian Tomlin for the London Museums Hub into the potential uses of machine-readable technologies to provide greater visitor access to interpretation and information in museums. He has been working with Matt Haworth, Revealing Histories Web Coordinator and gallery staff to set up the trial.