The coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of the world’s art galleries leaving many seeking ways to publish their works online to an audience trapped indoors. One of the galleries leading this push was the Louvre which created a dedicated collections website featuring over 480,000 items – many of which had been hidden away in storage for years.

Ironically, the restrictions of the pandemic made more of the Louvre’s collection accessible than ever before. We’re fascinated by how large datasets, paired with technology, can unlock new ways of seeing and experiencing the world so this vast digital archive immediately captured our imagination.

However, as a team passionate about user experience, we saw untapped potential. The academic tone of the site felt out of step with modern audiences and their growing expectations for joyful, intuitive digital experiences.

This sparked two key questions for us:

1) How might we engage users in new ways, encouraging exploration through playful design and novel interaction?

2) How might we apply machine learning to reveal patterns in the collection, using data to uncover trends and shifts across generations of artists?

Framework is our response to these: a series of experiments that reimagine how the Louvre’s collection could be experienced digitally, free from the constraints of the physical gallery.