Wander around the London Underground and you're likely to see safety posters from the British Transport Police (BTP). This is the first one that I've seen with a QR code on it.

It's a fairly good poster. A good call to action, a URL in case your phone can't read QR codes, and the code itself is well sized and has a high level of error correction.

Scanning the code, however, leads to a rather disappointing user experience.

A non-mobile mobile site

Here's what the user sees when they land on the BTP's "mobile" site.

The site is incredibly poorly formatted. It is evidently not designed for mobile, nor has it been tested on a wide range of phones.

No viewport has been set, meaning most phones will show the site zoomed out.

The images are all fixed at 480px wide, so any phones with a smaller screen may have difficultly rendering the page.

The Videos

The videos themselves are well produced, but almost totally unsuitable for mobile. The videos are around 30 seconds long - yet weigh in at around 3.6MB!

Even on 3G, that's a a long wait for the file to download. On 2G? Forget it.

The files aren't streamed - they have to be downloaded. Finally, the resolution is fixed at 640*360, and so the videos are not adapted to each device's screen resolution.

Click To Call

If you are the police, you probably want people to be able to phone you. So the BTP place their phone numbers on their site. There's only one problem - you can't click on the number to call them! So, you're left in the annoying situation where you either have to remember the phone number, or borrow another phone to call them.

Making telephone numbers "click-to-call" is really easy. Literally, all you need to do is write

<a href="tel:0800405040">Call us on 0800 40 50 40</a>

Hey presto! Users can click on your phone number and place a call from their mobile phone.

The Stats

As I discussed in an earlier post, using a URL shortner means that anyone can see your QR statistics!

So let's take a look at how the BTP have done.

At the moment, they're averaging 12 scans a day for this poster (I don't know if other posters have the same code - I suspect so). Naturally, iPhone is at the top of the scans, with BlackBerry following close behind.

Is this a good result? I don't know. If there was just a URL on there, how many visits would it get?

Making It Better

This is such a brilliant idea for a QR poster campaign. With only a little work, it can be made really useful for Londoners.

• Create a responsive mobile site.
• Use click-to-call for all phone numbers.
• Optimise the videos for mobile download and viewing.
• Consider streaming the videos - perhaps using a service like YouTube.

If you would like a bespoke QR consultation, contact me.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Office 4825 of the British Transport Police refused to show my his ID or Warrant Card when asked. I had been stopped under S.44(2) of The Terrorism Act 2000. The incident happened at around 0854BST on 19/08/2008.

The officer was, I consider, rude and unprofessional. He made a protracted phone call using what appeared to be a private mobile phone (not on the TETRA system) indicating personal information about me and my whereabouts. He would not give me any information about the call.

I have captured the incident on camera and you may view it at politics.phreadz.com/p/15ROH206TI2T/

I would like the following
1) Confirmation that this man is indeed a member of the British Transport Police.
2) Details about whether this man was correct not to show me his identification.
3) Details of the phone call he placed concerning me. Please let me know if I need to submit a separate FOI request for this. [In retrospect, I think I should be asking under the DPA not the FOIA]

Many thanks

Terence Eden

I was impressed with their speed of response. Less than 24 hours.

Mr. Eden

I can confirm that Officer 4825 is a British Transport Police Officer.

If an officer is in plain clothes he is obliged to show identification

In respect of the telephone call that was made, I cannot assist with that.

Regards

William Farrell

PSD Office Manager

It is correct, so I discover from investigation, that uniformed officers don't have to show ID. I think that's a shame. If they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear.

I really don't think I can be bothered chasing this with the BTP any further. I've stood up to authority and survived. I will continue to write to my MP and keep the money flowing to Liberty.

Many thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for featuring my story. To QIK for providing a streaming service. To Kosso at Phreadz for creating a fantastic video discussion forum. Thanks also for all those who've blogged and digged this (sorry if I missed any). Please keep the comments, tweets and jaikus coming in - it's been fascinating to read both the positive and negative views people have of my actions.

Finally, a huge amount of love and respect to my wife, Liz, for not making me sleep on the sofa last night ;-) She understands me like no one else.

This blog now returns to wittering about QR Codes, mobile phones and Shakespeare.

(Note - the Qik video service died in 2015 and I rehosted a copy of the video on YouTube. The video is missing a few minutes from the end.)

So, is my antagonistic whining at the police useful in any way? In my twisted mind, I see this as a good thing... sometimes. I believe it's up to all of us to occasionally turn around and say "Are you allowed to do that?" To say "Why?" I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but I don't think that enough people perform checks on authority. Power, so they say, corrupts. We've seen how police can be used against the population in Zimbabwe and other countries.

Now, I'm not naive enough to claim "OMFG POLICE STATE!" to being stopped - annoying and distressing as it is. Britain is a hell of a lot better than many other countries. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make it even better.

A lot of people (especially those whose parents escaped Europe during the war) are vigilant - perhaps over vigilant - against the return of fascism. And the first step towards that kind of rule is to stir up fear and hate in the population and use the civilian police for political purposes. Hence, I suppose, the emotional response.

The UK is not a police state. But it's up to each of us to make sure it doesn't become one. It's up to us to vote, to talk to our MPs, to expose violence and intimidation.

Let me make one thing clear; I have enormous respect for the police. They do a tough job and get a lot of abuse for it. I'm too much of a coward to put myself in harm's way every day like they do. The Security Services' failures are very public - and their successes are very private. We often only get to see the "bad" side of them. That distorts our perception of the work they do to keep all of us safe.

Some people have said that I'm a dick, that I'm looking for my 15MB of fame (excellent turn of phrase), that I'm goading the police for a reaction.
Others think I'm highlighting security theatre, a citizen journalism hero, that I was perfectly reasonable.
Those are a selection of people's thoughts. There are more on digg.

Ultimately, I'm conflicted. I feel that it's right to highlight the silliness of these random searches. I feel that my right to free speech has been exercised and I'm hugely grateful that I live in a society that values and respects the free discourse of ideas.
However, I should have handled it better. I should have been calmer and more professional. I don't think I was in any serious danger of being carted away - but it terrifies me that had I slipped and made comment too provocative I'd now be in jail for 28 days.

I'm grateful to James Bridle for filing a Freedom of Infomation request to the Home Office, via What Do They Know. If these "random" stop and searches result in a significant number of arrests and prosecutions; I'll accept that I'm a hysterical moaner and let them get on with it. If, however, all it accomplishes is to piss off innocent citizens.....

Please, if you care about your freedoms in the UK, join Liberty.

Night all.

(This post comprises a distillation of a number of tweets, comments on digg, phreadz and conversations with people. I'll update it with trackbacks to other blogs covering this when I get some free time.)