#LuxLife Life in the Grand Duchy

Our goal was to investigate the implications of new technologies on the ways in which museums produce meaning, connect with their communities, and engage visitors through novel digital interactivity. Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to equip students with the tools necessary to critically reflect on the user experience of museum technologies and how they influence our thinking about cultural heritage.

We drew inspiration from various sources in the development of the course structure. As a first of its kind, interdisciplinarity was key. Incorporating research from museum studies, user experience (UX) design, digital history, and computer science, we set out to bring together salient theoretical concepts from different disciplines and ground them within a series of applied projects throughout the semester. We borrowed from museum studies curricula, including a course by Katherine Burton Jones at Harvard University, as well as a number of multimedia sources such as Netflix documentaries, TED talks, and podcasts.