Hi Dante! The problem this tries to solve is usually how to identify yourself to a machine. Mobile barcodes sounds like a good candidate, it has been tried, but I haven't seen any cases of successful widespread adoption.
The problem is partly reliable and cheap delivery to the phone. MMS is expensive to send. Most people don't have email set up on their phones. There is also the problem of reading the barcode off the mobile. The differences in phone capabilities and screen resolutions makes it almost impossible to guarantee that the barcode can be read. You have to have a backup system in place. The solution that are in widespread use around here is SMS and/or credit card. It is common to receive a reservation number on SMS when you purchase a ticket (airline, cimema etc, etc.). You read out the code, or hand over the phone to the person behind the counter. In cases where there is no person behind a counter, you swipe your credit card as ID. The cases I've been involved in, we have designed our way around the need for something like barcodes. I'm not saying it can't be done. I've just not seen a case where it really pays off, where it solves any pain for the user. You want barcodes to make a system faster, cheaper, easier. But all I've seen is fiddly, unreliable, and frustrating :-). NFC (or RFID tags) built into the phone is probably the way to go, but that is still maaaany years off. -- Morten Hjerde http://sender11.typepad.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
