{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-11-04T22:46:24.151Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"fbed568d-a7ad-4d32-9829-0d28c13b0799","slug":"edit-research-readout-deck-before-you-send","title":"Before You Send the Deck: A Checklist for Editing a Research Readout","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/edit-research-readout-deck-before-you-send","summary":"A checklist for editing a research readout deck exported from a research tool before sending it. Run six passes: check each insight against its quotes and add counts, replace quote labels with roles and remove identifying details, add a slide on who you heard from and what the study cannot show, cut the deck to the slides the reader needs, rewrite titles as findings, and check charts and bases. A typical Koji export of a ten-question study runs to about 28 slides, against 19.2 for the average funded pitch deck in DocSend data.","content":"An exported research deck is a first draft. Before you send it, spend 30 to 45 minutes on six passes: check every insight against the quotes behind it, fix the label under every quote, add the slide that says who you heard from and what the study cannot show, cut the deck to the slides your reader will actually open, rewrite each slide title as a finding, and check every chart against the report. A deck that skips these passes reads as finished but carries errors you would never put your name to.\n\nThis checklist is for product managers, designers, founders and researchers who ran a study, downloaded the report as slides, and now have to send it to a board, a leadership review, a client or a team kickoff. It works for any deck built from a tool. The examples use the deck Koji exports, because that is the one we know slide by slide.\n\n**Try it on a real deck first.** Open a finished study in Koji, choose Download, then PowerPoint, and keep the file open beside this page. Every step below names the slide to look at.\n\n## Why an exported deck needs an edit\n\nExport tools save you the slow part: copying quotes, rebuilding charts, laying out slides. What they cannot do is decide what your reader needs, and that is the part that gets a decision made.\n\nThree numbers explain why the edit matters:\n\n- **People skim.** Jakob Nielsen's analysis of 45,237 page views found that readers have time to read at most 28% of the words on an average web page, and about 20% is the realistic figure ([Nielsen Norman Group, 2008](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-little-do-users-read/)). Slides get the same treatment. If the finding is not in the title, most readers will not reach it.\n- **Readers give a deck minutes.** DocSend and Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann studied the decks of more than 200 startups that raised seed and Series A rounds. Investors spent an average of 3 minutes 44 seconds on each deck, and the decks averaged 19.2 slides ([TechCrunch, 2015](https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/lessons-from-a-study-of-perfect-pitch-decks-vcs-spend-an-average-of-3-minutes-44-seconds-on-them/)). A board member reading your research appendix gives it less.\n- **Numbers copied by hand go wrong.** Audits of real business spreadsheets found errors in 49 of the 54 files inspected, about 91% ([Computerworld, summarising Raymond Panko](https://www.computerworld.com/article/1704893/sidebar-oops.html)). Every figure you retype from a report into a slide is a chance to make the same kind of mistake.\n\nThe worst case is well documented. After the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003, the accident board singled out a Boeing briefing slide where the warning that mattered sat in a low-level bullet near the bottom. The board called the reliance on slides in place of technical papers \"endemic\" ([Edward Tufte on the CAIB report](https://www.edwardtufte.com/notebook/columbia-accident-investigation-board-the-boeing-powerpoint-slide/)). Your readout will not carry stakes like that. The lesson still holds: the slide can be accurate and the reader can still miss the point.\n\n## What the exported deck gives you\n\nKnow what is in the file before you edit it. A Koji report downloads as an editable PowerPoint deck that opens in PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides, in this order:\n\n1. A cover with the study name, the date it was completed and the number of participants\n2. An \"at a glance\" slide: participants, average interview length, the number of personas, and who you talked to\n3. An executive summary\n4. One slide per key insight, up to eight, each with a supporting quote\n5. One slide per question, with the summary beside a native chart you can edit\n6. One slide per persona, up to six\n7. Recommendations, three to a slide\n8. A closing slide\n\nRun the numbers on a typical study. Eight insights, ten questions, four personas and six recommendations come to 28 slides, half again as long as the average funded pitch deck in the DocSend study. That is the right amount for an archive and too much for a board pack. You can also download the report as a PDF of the full report page, which is the better choice for the archive (see the [guide to sharing reports](/docs/publishing-sharing-reports)).\n\n## The pre-send checklist\n\n![Checklist of twelve checks for an exported research deck, from matching insights to quotes and labelling quotes by role to adding a limits slide.](/visuals/exported-research-deck-pre-send-checklist/exported-research-deck-pre-send-checklist.png \"Run these checks on the downloaded file, not on the report, because the file is what your reader sees\")\n\n### 1. Check every insight against its evidence\n\nAn insight slide is a claim. Open the report beside the deck, and for each insight click through to the quotes behind it (the [guide to tracing findings](/docs/tracing-report-findings-to-evidence) shows how). Ask three questions:\n\n- **Does the quote say what the title says?** A quote about onboarding friction under a title about pricing is a mismatch, even if both came up in the same interview.\n- **How many people said it?** Write the base on the slide: \"9 of 24 participants\", not \"many participants\". If you cannot find a count, say it is one person's view or cut the slide.\n- **Is it a finding or something everyone already believed?** An obvious result still needs evidence. The [test for obvious findings](/docs/we-already-knew-that-obvious-findings) helps you tell a confirmation from a guess.\n\nLong text is shortened to fit each slide, at the last full sentence where possible, so read every insight to the end. A trailing ellipsis means a thought was cut; finish it or rewrite it.\n\n### 2. Fix the label under every quote\n\nEach insight slide shows one quote with the participant's label under it. If you invited people by name, that label can be the person's name. Replace it with a role: \"Ops lead, 40-person agency\", \"Churned customer, 8 months\". Then read the quote itself for names, employers and anything else that identifies someone.\n\nTurning on the setting to remove personal details before interviews start takes names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and employers out of transcripts, and the deck is built from the cleaned text. It applies only to interviews that finish after you switch it on and it can miss details, so still read every quote. For client and enterprise work, also check the [guide to anonymising interview data](/docs/anonymizing-customer-interview-data) and the rules on [minimum segment sizes](/docs/k-anonymity-segment-reporting-minimum-base-size): a quote from the only CFO you interviewed identifies that CFO.\n\n### 3. Add the slide on who you heard from, and what the study cannot show\n\nThe \"at a glance\" slide gives the count and the average length. Readers who decide on budgets ask two more questions, and the deck should answer them before they do:\n\n- **Who did you hear from, and who not?** \"24 interviews with active customers on monthly plans in the UK and Germany. No churned customers, no enterprise accounts.\"\n- **What can this study not tell you?** Interviews explain why. They do not size a market or predict conversion. Say so in one line, and name what would settle it: a price test, a pilot, usage data.\n\n![Koji public research report page with the title, respondent count, quality score and findings tabs](/email/shots/shot-public-report.jpg \"The report header shows the respondent count and quality score to repeat on your limits slide\")\n\nAdd the interview quality figure from the report header too. It is the level of the middle interview, so one weak conversation does not drag it down, and it tells a sceptical reader that the conversations were substantial. For how many interviews a claim needs, see [how many user interviews are enough](/docs/how-many-user-interviews).\n\n### 4. Cut the deck to the slides your reader will open\n\nDecide who the deck is for, then cut. A board needs the decision; a team kickoff needs the detail. Ask three questions of each slide: does it help this reader make the decision, is there evidence behind it with a count, and does its title state the finding?\n\n![Flowchart for sorting slides in a research deck: three questions decide whether a slide moves to the appendix, gets cut or stays with a rewritten title.](/visuals/keep-move-or-cut-a-research-slide/keep-move-or-cut-a-research-slide.png \"Ask these three questions of every slide, then move or cut what fails\")\n\nA practical split for a 28-slide export:\n\n| Reader             | Keep in the main deck                                   | Move to the appendix                        |\n| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |\n| Board or investors | Summary, 3 insights, recommendations, limits slide      | Question slides, personas                   |\n| Leadership review  | Summary, 3 to 5 insights, recommendations, limits slide | Most question slides                        |\n| Team kickoff       | Everything, with personas near the front                | Nothing; send the PDF as well               |\n| Client deliverable | Summary, all insights, recommendations                  | Question slides the brief did not ask about |\n\nThe [seven-slide readout](/blog/customer-research-readout-seven-slides) gives the structure for the board and investor version in detail.\n\n### 5. Rewrite each title as a finding\n\nThe insight and question slides arrive with the insight's own title or the question text as the heading. Question text is a topic, not a finding. \"How do you decide which tool to buy?\" tells a reader what you asked; \"Buyers trust peer referrals over review sites\" tells them what you learned. Rewrite every title so a reader who reads only the titles gets the story.\n\nDo the same on the cover. The report header lets you change the title to say what was found, and the export uses the study name, so type the finding over it on the cover slide.\n\n### 6. Check the charts and numbers last\n\nThe charts on question slides are native PowerPoint charts, so you can change labels, colours and order. Before you change anything, check three things:\n\n- The chart shows the same numbers as the report. If you edited the data, compare value by value.\n- Every percentage has a base. \"38% (n = 24)\" reads very differently from \"38% (n = 400)\".\n- Small groups are not over-read. A split of 3 against 2 is a story, not a statistic.\n\n## Before you send: a final read\n\nRead the deck once more as the person receiving it, without the report open. If you can answer \"what did we learn, how sure are we, and what should we do\" from the slides alone, send it. If not, the gap is usually a title that names a topic or a missing limits slide.\n\nPair the deck with a link to the live report for anyone who wants the evidence behind a slide. Readers who doubt one claim can click through to the quotes, and those who trust it can stop at the slide.\n\n## Do this with your next study\n\nThe fastest way to learn the checklist is to run it once on a real export:\n\n1. Open a finished study in Koji and download the report as PowerPoint.\n2. Work through the six checks above, in order. Expect 30 to 45 minutes the first time.\n3. Save your edited deck as the template for the next study, with the limits slide already in place.\n\nNo study to export yet? [Start free on Koji](https://www.koji.so), run a short interview study with your own customers, and download the report as slides or a PDF when the interviews are in. For the wider question of turning findings into decisions, read [presenting research findings to stakeholders](/docs/presenting-research-findings).\n","category":"Tutorial","lastModified":"2026-11-04T07:20:13.661899+00:00","metaTitle":"Edit a Research Readout Deck Before You Send It: Checklist","metaDescription":"A pre-send checklist for research decks exported from a tool: check insights against quotes, label quotes by role, add a limits slide, cut and retitle.","keywords":["research readout checklist","edit research report deck","research deck before sharing","customer research presentation","user research slides","share research findings"],"aiSummary":"A checklist for editing a research readout deck exported from a research tool before sending it. Run six passes: check each insight against its quotes and add counts, replace quote labels with roles and remove identifying details, add a slide on who you heard from and what the study cannot show, cut the deck to the slides the reader needs, rewrite titles as findings, and check charts and bases. A typical Koji export of a ten-question study runs to about 28 slides, against 19.2 for the average funded pitch deck in DocSend data.","aiKeywords":["research readout","research deck checklist","exported PowerPoint report","presenting research findings","quote anonymisation","limits slide","Koji report download"],"aiContentType":"guide","faqItems":[{"answer":"Plan on 30 to 45 minutes the first time for a typical study. Most of that goes on checking insights against their quotes and rewriting slide titles as findings. Once you save your edited deck as a template, with a limits slide already in place, later studies go faster.","question":"How long does it take to edit an exported research deck?"},{"answer":"Send a trimmed deck when the reader has to make a decision in a meeting, and a PDF of the full report for the archive or for readers who want every question. Pair either with a link to the live report so a doubtful reader can check the quotes behind a claim.","question":"Should I send a research deck or a PDF?"},{"answer":"Replace the label under each quote with a role, such as Ops lead at a 40-person agency, and read every quote for names, employers and other details. Removing personal details from transcripts before interviews start helps, but it can miss things, and a quote from the only person in a segment still identifies them.","question":"How do I keep participants anonymous in a research deck?"},{"answer":"Around seven: the decision and your answer, who you heard from, three findings with evidence, the recommendation and what you still do not know. Move question-by-question slides and personas to an appendix. A full export of a ten-question study can run to 28 slides.","question":"How many slides should a research readout have for a board?"},{"answer":"Yes. Koji exports reports as PowerPoint files with native charts, so you can change labels, colours and order in PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides. Check the numbers still match the report after any change, and show the base next to each percentage.","question":"Can I edit the charts in a Koji deck?"}],"relatedTopics":["presenting research findings","research readout","sharing findings","research reports","stakeholder communication"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}