A structured repository for research operations, from intake to artifact storage
An animal health technology and distribution company consolidated its internal UX research operations into Airtable, replacing ad hoc list views and manual tracking with a structured participant repository, standardized intake, and organized artifact storage.
The problem
The internal UX research team managed participant panels and company details in disorganized list views without a structured data model. Finding a participant, understanding prior engagement, or querying by attribute required manual effort and produced inconsistent results.
Research requests arrived through informal channels rather than a defined intake process, making it difficult to prioritize studies, allocate researcher time, or maintain a record of what had been requested and why. Research artifacts were stored without a consistent system, limiting their reuse.
What they built
The team deployed Airtable as a purpose-built research operations repository. Participant panels are structured records with company details, engagement history, and searchable attributes. A standardized intake form channels all incoming research requests through a consistent process before they reach the team.
Research artifacts are attached directly to the relevant base records rather than stored in disconnected folders. This keeps study outputs tied to their context and makes them findable by project, participant type, or date. The repository gives both UX researchers and product partners a shared operational foundation.
The outcome
The UX research team now operates from a single repository that covers the full operational scope of internal research: who is in the panel, what has been requested, and where the findings live. Ad hoc list management has been replaced with a structured base that supports consistent queries.
Standardized intake means research requests arrive with the information needed to scope and prioritize them. Artifact storage tied to records removes the need to search disconnected folders for prior study outputs. The team has a reusable operational infrastructure that scales as research volume grows.
Inside the solution
User research operations
Research and Knowledge Management
- Research participant panel management with company detail records
- Internal research request intake via standardized form
- Research artifact storage tied to relevant base records
- Disorganized list views with no structured participant data model
- Manual data entry and ad hoc request intake processes
- Consolidated source of truth for participant panels and research history
- Standardized intake process replacing informal request channels
- User Research
- Product
- Airtable forms
User Research Operations
Run user research operations end to end from one base: route every internal request through a standardized intake queue, scope it into a study, schedule and consent participants from a structured panel, and file every artifact and insight against the record it came from. Automations open studies from new requests, return completed sessions to the panel, and email a weekly untriaged-queue digest, while native AI fields triage intakes, profile panel members, and draft readouts and artifact abstracts.
How user research operations work in Airtable
Build a structured participant repository
Route all research requests through a standard intake form
Store and retrieve artifacts tied to their source records
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Airtable supports internal administrative and operational workflows for research teams without handling regulated data. The deployment covers participant panel management, internal request intake, and artifact storage for operational use by UX and product staff, keeping all content within internal research operations framing.
Each participant is a record with fields for company details, engagement history, and searchable attributes. The structure allows researchers to filter by any combination of fields to identify participants appropriate for a given study, replacing informal list management with a queryable database.
A consistent intake form requires requestors to provide the study objective, scope, and timeline before a request reaches the research team. This reduces back-and-forth and gives researchers the information needed to scope and prioritize work from the moment a request arrives.
Yes. Artifacts attached to Airtable records can be filtered and grouped by study type, date, participant category, or project. Researchers looking for prior outputs on a specific topic can query the base directly rather than searching disconnected file storage locations.
The base structure supports growing panel sizes, increasing request volumes, and accumulating artifact storage without changes to the underlying data model. New views, filters, and automation triggers can be added as the team's operational needs evolve, making the infrastructure reusable across research cycles.