Louvre Museum

Cultural platform

Breaking down the complexity and intimidation of the museum to enhance the visitor experience.

A full case study is available on request

  • End-to-end design

Expertise

UX/UI Design

Art Direction

Responsive Design

Design System

Building Process

Engineering Collaboration

Design team

  • 2 UX/UI designers

Timeline

  • 2021 — Made at Mazarine agency

Results

  • Reached 93% accessibility
  • Reached 80% of user satisfaction

Problem & goal

The redesign of the Louvre Museum's platform aims to improve and simplify both the physical and online experience of visitors, adapting it to the pace of the museum's projects and user expectations.

Faced with challenges such as the scale of the collections, the complexity of navigating the museum, and a significant cultural offering, the goal is to transform from a static and intimidating place to a vibrant and effervescent platform, making the visiting experience connected, coherent, and memorable.

UI/UX design overview of muséedulouvre.fr

Understanding the visitors' experience

To explore the possibilities of the project, the Louvre team conducted extensive research including interviews with visitors and museum experts.

From these interviews, experience maps and visitor profiles were created to generate insights and define tasks to be accomplished, which guided the development of features for the new platform. The outcomes of this work include tree mapping or story mapping.

UX and design principles

We have developed five UX principles to meet the needs of users and the goals of the museum: ensure information transparency, guide and support visitors, manage their frustrations, reignite their interest, while providing information at the right time.

General approach

The visiting experience at the Louvre is divided into three key moments: before, during, and after the visit.

Additionally, there is the opportunity to motivate visitors to return and to position the Louvre as a staple in their cultural calendar.

Navigation is centered on the main needs, both for visitors and for the museum's strategy.

Facilitate with a modular design

Key information is organized into modules for immediate understanding, guiding the visitor during the highlights of a visit. The platform easily adapts to the museum's pace of life with facilitated content contribution.

Streamline and template

The pages have been designed to be easily contributed to by museum experts. A balance has been found between freedom and constraints to avoid duplicating information.

Template #01 (Level 1) — Display essential information on landing pages.

Template #01 (Level 2) — Provide detailed information for each section.

Template #02 (Level 2 & 3) — fully contributable for flexibility — A persistent tab system allows for clear content segmentation.

Template #02 (Level 2 & 3) — Desktop version

Facilitate arrival at the museum and provide moments of respite, while linking the magic of the place (iconography) to the practicality of services (icons, information hierarchy).

Access to the museum — Facilitate and guide before the visit.

Access to restaurants — Link the magic of the place (iconography) to the practicality of services (icons, information hierarchy).

Learn and (re)discover

Make the museum accessible to all through the understanding of the artworks and by navigating the vastness of the collections.

Opportunity: a new way to visit the museum through guided paths

The redesign of the museum's paths facilitates a new visiting experience, guiding visitors through simplified routes that highlight lesser-known works. The approach is to offer original and accessible tours, centered on a targeted selection of artworks.

The UX is designed for smooth navigation, from the entrance to the exit of a path, incorporating breaks and effective signage to help visitors easily orient themselves. The implementation and articulation of UX paves the way for the free creation of paths by museum contributors, continuously enriching the museum experience.

New UX approach to paths — Offer a limited and targeted choice of simple routes, centered around a few artworks.

Discovery page

The Louvre Museum is one of the few museums in the world to offer an entry through the premises to present its collections. Thus, the premises are an important part of the wonder of a visit and are at the heart of a guided tour.

This provides the museum with an opportunity to open a book on the history of the Louvre to (re)inspire visitors and to bring the artworks closer to visitors with universal themes of reading, to make them want to return to see the unvisited works, to help them find information after the visit, and to foster a spirit of discovery.

Creation of an iconographic template, customizable and contributable for a striking visual experience and comfortable navigation through the palace and collections.

Addressing the cultural program

We have reviewed and simplified the Louvre's cultural offerings to make them clearer and more visible, with a new organization that allows for targeting and effectively communicating about the right events to the appropriate audience at the ideal time.

Louvre inspirational picture of an art teacher showing a group of kids a work of art inside Louvre museum
Louvre inspirational picture of an art teacher showing a group of people a work of art inside Louvre museum

We have simplified the navigation of our platform by highlighting essential information: major exhibitions are pinned to remain visible, with tags indicating their duration, and are primarily aimed at first-time visitors.

Navigation between categories is smooth, facilitating access to organized content, and guided tours, which represent 40% of the museum's activities, are easily accessible.

Exhibition pages become modular landing pages & cultural resources thanks to the creation of a UI component library, allowing Louvre teams to accommodate a wide variety of contributions.

Information is organized hierarchically, from the introduction to practical details: what, where, how, when.

Louvre exhibition page

Enabling the visitor to 'take the leap' — Maximizing the clarity of information and making it relevant to their goals.

Design system & enginnering collaboration

The design system (Figma + Storybook + Code), coupled with close collaboration with the front-end team, was a key factor in the project's success. The use of templates and extensive collaboration enabled rapid development and delivery of the project well ahead of schedule.

The design system anticipates future updates and supports sustainable development.

Louvre design system

The future is yet to be written

We have created a solid and comprehensible ecosystem to facilitate evolution in the coming years.

A goal achieved: to approach updates and the roadmap of this new cultural product serenely, allowing us to involve visitors in the day-to-day project more effectively.