Are Swiss Museums Still Alive?

As part of my internship at Interactive Things, my final project was to create a storytelling experience. I was responsible for the entire process—from idea generation to coding: sketching, designing, prototyping, and building the website. I applied the techniques and approaches used at the company, as well as the lessons I learned while working on client projects during my internship.

The topic I chose was museums, because they are one of my passions. I wanted to investigate whether people are still going to museums, which types they prefer, and what the overall trends look like. I started with many questions, but the available data was neither clean nor easily accessible, so part of the challenge was preparing and structuring it in a meaningful way.

🗺️ Project Overview

Switzerland has one of the highest museum densities per capita in the world. But what does that mean for its cultural impact?

This is a data-driven exploration of Switzerland’s museum landscape, analyzing their types, spatial distribution, and insights backed by statistical and survey data from the federal government.

Links

• Live Homepage

This interactive visualization showcases the diversity of Swiss museums, with a focus on their types, distribution, and popularity.

• Statistics: The most up-to-date data about museums from the BFS (see Methodology for details).
• Museum Distribution: How museums are spread across the 26 cantons.
• Types & Popularity: A breakdown of museum categories, their distribution, popularity in terms of visits, and the number of museums in each type.

The main visualization has two distinct views: a grid and a map of Switzerland, allowing users to explore the museum data interactively.

Both the grid and the map view present small pie charts representing each canton, with each color corresponding to a distinct type of museum.

📊 Data Source

(See the Methodology section at the bottom of the page for details on resources, data cleaning, and methodology.)

1. Statistical data (BFS)
2. A complete list of museums in Switzerland
3. A list of the most visited museums in Switzerland

🧰 Technologies Used

• Next.js + TypeScript for framework and structure
• Scrollama for scroll-driven storytelling
• D3 for data formatting and manipulation
• Framer Motion for smooth animations in the pie charts and transitions between grid and map views
• Storybook for prototyping

✨ Features

• The beginning of the website is inspired by a museum guide, with categories or "floors" that guide you through the site’s sections.
• Each section has its own colors and lines, mimicking the experience of moving through rooms and following pathways.
• The site is colorful and animated: the first part is explanatory, while the final part is exploratory, where users can toggle views and click on the map.

💬 Final Thoughts

This was my last project of the internship — I loved combining my passion for design, history, and data into a cohesive narrative experience.

It deepened my skills in:

• Writing scroll-triggered animation logic and managing two panels in one view
• Structuring projects in Next.js + TypeScript
• Working with Framer Motion to achieve smooth transitions and animations
• Managing a complete project workflow, from idea to implementation, with the support of professionals