Where to put a QR code so it gets scanned
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Most QR codes that don't work have nothing technically wrong with them. They were generated properly, printed properly, and lead where they should. They fail because they're placed somewhere nobody can or wants to scan them.
For a scan to happen, four conditions have to hold at once: the person has to see the code, be able to get close enough, have their hands free, and have a few seconds to spare. If even one is missing, the code goes unused.
The sizing rule almost nobody respects
The practical ratio between code size and reading distance is one to ten. A three-centimetre code scans comfortably from about thirty centimetres. A ten-centimetre one, from a metre. To read it from three metres you need around thirty centimetres a side.
With that rule in hand, most badly placed codes explain themselves. The business-card-sized code on a facade sign five metres up would need to be five times bigger. The one on a billboard seen from across the street would have to be over a metre.
It's also worth leaving margin above the minimum, because the rule assumes good conditions: enough light, a crisply printed code, a modern phone, and a steady hand. Outdoors, at night, or with an older audience, go bigger.
Places where a QR is doomed
In motion. A code on a motorway, on the side of a lorry, or on a sign seen from a car can't be scanned, and putting one there only makes the brand look like it doesn't understand the medium.
On screens that change by themselves. A code in a TV advert or on a rotating display lasts a few seconds, and that's rarely enough for someone to find their phone, open the camera and aim. If it's used anyway, it has to stay on screen far longer than seems necessary.
Without signal. Underground stations, basements, lifts, concrete interior halls. If the code leads to a web page and there's no signal, the scan ends in an error. In those places a text QR, readable offline, is a better fit, or provide WiFi.
Where hands are full. At a supermarket checkout with your arms loaded, pushing a trolley or carrying bags, nobody pulls out a phone. The code can be perfect and at the right height, but the moment doesn't exist.
Too high, or behind glass with glare. A code three metres up forces people to aim upwards into the light. One in a window facing the afternoon sun goes unreadable at exactly the busiest hour.
Places where it works
Where people wait. A waiting room, a queue, a table before the order arrives, a platform. These have the best scan rates because there's dead time and the phone is already in hand.
On what the person is already holding. The receipt, the invoice, the flyer, the product packaging, the business card. The distance is minimal, the angle is whatever they choose, and glare is a non-issue.
On the table and at the counter, at eye level for someone seated or standing, not on the floor or the ceiling.
In a shop window, as long as glare is handled: stuck on the inside but angled so the sun doesn't hit it head-on during the busiest hours, and at an adult's chest height.
Say what's on the other side
A black square with no explanation tells nobody anything. The difference between a code with a call to action and one without is large, and it costs nothing.
The instruction should say what the person gains, not what they have to do. Scan the code states the obvious; See the menu, Leave a review, See all 20 photos of the property, or Download the manual are reasons. The key word is the benefit, not the gesture.
A frame around the code helps too, separating it visually from the rest of the design and marking it as something actionable. This tool can generate one with the text you choose.
And a final recommendation that prevents most failures: test the code in the exact place it will live, standing where the person will stand, at the busiest time. Scanning from your desk with a test print says nothing about what will happen on the street.