From WordPress websites to internationally award-winning products. From two founders to an interdisciplinary team. And from designing digital interfaces to exploring how we can make the world a little more human.

In 2016, Empatic was exactly two people: Benedikt Danko and Josef Mayerhofer. Half the team was based in Vienna. A big network? Nope. Big-name clients? Not those either. To pay our first bills, we built WordPress websites. Not exactly what we’d dreamed of. But hey, everyone has to start somewhere.

Ten years later, we design products used by more than 2.5 million people every month, work with international companies, and win two prestigious design awards in the very year we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary.

How did we get here? And what have we learned along the way?

From Tyrol to the world

Over the years, small assignments turn into bigger projects. First contacts become partnerships, some of which are still going strong today.

Together with SWARCO, we develop solutions for traffic management in major cities around the world. With BORA, we help shape the kitchen of the future. And for many years, we’ve been working with TechnoAlpin on the future of ski resort management. Together with the Austrian National Library, we’re reimagining digital access to knowledge. And with companies like Swarovski, Roche, Siemens Healthineers, and many others, we get to tackle a wide variety of challenges.

Along the way, we realize something: The most interesting questions rarely start with design.

They start with understanding what people actually need.

And so our company evolves, too. What began with designing digital interfaces expands into holistic product strategies, physical products, and new services. With ACREDIA, for example, we use an eight-meter-long Customer Journey Map to help embed the customer’s perspective more deeply into the organization.

The scale of our work has changed. Our starting point hasn’t: people.

10 years by the numbers

10 years of Empatic. More than 2.5 million monthly active users. 34 Usability Testessen events. An estimated 719 workshops. 1,058 Usability Testessen guests.

And suddenly, our app hits No. 1.

2026 gives us more than one reason to celebrate.

Together with the Austrian Civil Protection Association, we develop ZIVA, an app that helps people prepare for emergencies and know what to do when a crisis strikes. It reaches No. 1 in the Austrian App Store and wins the international UX Design Award in the Product category.

Around the same time, the online shop and ordering app we developed together with Morandell receive the Red Dot Design Award 2026.

For us, these awards are, above all, a recognition of the way we work. Behind both products are extensive user research, countless tests, and a willingness to rethink ideas again and again.

Good design shouldn’t just look good. It should make a difference.

Good ideas get better when you share them.

From day one, we haven’t just wanted to practice human-centered design ourselves. We’ve wanted to inspire others to embrace it, too.

That’s why we founded the Empatic Academy, supported startups in developing their first products, and helped companies make user research and testing an essential part of their development processes.

One initiative that’s especially close to our hearts is Usability Testessen. What sounds like an unusual dinner party is actually a pretty simple idea: Companies bring their products, people test them, and everyone learns something along the way.

We’ve now organized 34 of these events at various locations in Innsbruck, Vienna, and Vorarlberg, welcoming a total of 1,058 guests.

Add to that hundreds of workshops, training sessions, and collaborative innovation days.

Because we believe that human-centered design shouldn’t be an exclusive skill reserved for design agencies. The more people understand how to create better solutions for other people, the better.

Design can do more than business.

Over the years, we’ve become increasingly interested in questions that aren’t primarily about commercial success.

With Smart Communities, we explored what the smart communities of tomorrow could look like in East Tyrol. In another project, we worked on ways to detect neurodegenerative diseases earlier.

In 2025, we also launched Design für Gutes (Design for Good). Through this initiative, we offer our expertise free of charge to social organizations and projects that want to make a difference but don’t always have the resources to do so. The initiative will return for another round in 2027.

And with the support of the FFG, we’re currently tackling an important social challenge through an Impact Innovation Social project: How can we ensure fair career development opportunities for people with caregiving responsibilities, even when they work part-time?

Projects like these remind us why we founded Empatic in the first place. Because we believe human-centered design shouldn’t just make products better. It should also contribute to making society better.

The most important ingredient? People.

Ten years of Empatic wouldn’t have been possible without the many people who have joined us on this journey.

Our team has grown, changed, and reinvented itself time and again. People with different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives have shaped who we are today. Some joined us for just part of the journey, while others have stayed. Zack, who has played a key role in shaping our Product Design work for many years, is now a partner and shareholder at Empatic.

Ben

Josef

Christina

Gosia

Jessi

Johannes

Laura

Marcus

Rasmus

Jana

Tamara

Maria

Moe

Zack

Alena

Selina

Lena

Berni

Julia

Sophie

Ursula

Zoë

Lea

Anna

Hannah

Elisa

Ferdi

Max

Corinna

To all of you, a huge thank you. For your ideas, your dedication, your curiosity, your patience, and all the incredible experiences we’ve shared.

And of course, a big thank you to our clients and partners. For your trust, your courage to do things differently, and the opportunity to grow together.

Without you, that two-man show from 2016 would never have become the Empatic we know today. ❤️

And the next ten years?

The world is changing at an incredible pace. Artificial intelligence is transforming how we work, develop products, and interact with one another.

For us, this raises an exciting question: How can we use technology to make our work not just more efficient, but above all, more human?

With Empatic Workplace and our new Workplace AI Audit, we’re increasingly exploring how people experience their work and how organizations can shape the workplace of tomorrow.

In a way, this brings us full circle. Ten years ago, we set out to make digital products more human. Today, we want to bring that same mindset to more and more areas of our lives.

We don’t know what the next ten years will bring. But one thing’s for sure: We’ve still got plenty of ideas up our sleeves.

Thank you for ten years of Empatic.