A design exercise on culture, technology, and the city
This project is a self-initiated design exploration. Starting from the real digital ecosystem of the Uffizi Galleries, I asked myself: what would a well-designed app for one of the most important cultural institutions actually look like?
The exploration moves across three layers. The product: a dedicated mobile app for the Uffizi, aligned with the institution's brand identity. The technology: proximity-based triggers, earphone controls, and location awareness that keep users present in the museum rather than glued to a screen. The service: the Uffizi website already manages four historic venues across Florence. Could an app connect them into a single, continuous experience, accompanying visitors inside the museums and through the city streets in between?
The Uffizi Galleries aren't a single museum, they're an institution that manages four landmark venues within walking distance of each other in the heart of Florence: the Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Pitti, the Boboli Gardens, and the Vasari Corridor.
Most visitors experience them separately. The app explores a different possibility: connecting these places into one continuous journey, where the route between venues becomes part of the experience, a walk through the city with a guide in your ear, pointing out what's worth noticing along the way.
A service structured around the visit, not just the museum
The app is designed around three moments, because a cultural experience doesn't start at the entrance and doesn't end at the exit.
Before: Prepare your visit. Choose a themed route, preview the works, select a guide that fits your pace and interests.
During: Put your phone away. The app recognizes where you are and what you're looking at, and the guide speaks at the right moment, inside the museum, and along the streets between venues.
After: Revisit what stayed with you. Find the works that caught your attention, go deeper, keep the experience going.
A guide that follows you, not the other way around
Inside the museum the experience is built around one principle: minimize screen time. You choose how to explore, a guided tour follows a curated path with commentary timed to each work, a self-guided tour lets you move freely and access information as you encounter pieces that interest you.
The app tracks your position and automatically identifies which work you're standing in front of. The guide pauses while you observe, and continues when you move on. At the end, you can keep exploring independently or receive further recommendations from the same guide.
Control what you listen to using your earphone buttons for a seamless experience.
The app uses your location to automatically identify the artwork you're viewing.
Access detailed information about the painting through your voice assistant.
Staying out of the way
Making this work without asking users to constantly check their phone meant designing a technology layer that activates at the right moment, quietly, in the background.
Location awareness: The app uses your position to automatically identify the artwork you're viewing. No scanning, no searching.
Earphone controls: Skip, repeat, or pause the guide directly from your earphone buttons, without taking your phone out of your pocket.
Voice assistant: Ask for more detail on a technique, a historical figure, or a detail that caught your eye, at any moment, hands-free.
Accessible by design
The service is built for a wide range of visitors: first-timers and returning guests, families with children, visitors with hearing impairments. Routes adapt for duration, physical accessibility, and age. Content is available in audio, text, and visual formats.
The guide isn't a single voice. It's a system that adjusts to the person using it.
A cultural experience that belongs to the city, not just the museum
Florence is already a museum without walls. This project started from the belief that a well-designed service shouldn't compete with that experience, it should make it richer.