Publishing Your Study

Publishing is the moment your study goes from a design document to a live research instrument. When you hit publish, Koji takes your research brief and creates an AI interviewer that's ready to have conversations with your participants. It also generates a unique interview link you can share immediately.

What Happens When You Publish

Publishing triggers several things behind the scenes:

1. Your AI Interviewer Is Created

Koji takes everything in your research brief — the problem statement, methodology, target audience description, interview questions, probes, and any special instructions — and configures an AI interviewer specifically for your study. This interviewer knows your research goals, follows your chosen methodology, uses the questions you approved, and draws on any context documents you uploaded.

The interviewer is unique to your study. It's not a generic chatbot — it's a purpose-built research conversationalist designed to execute your study plan.

2. Your Interview Link Is Generated

You receive a unique URL that you can share with participants. When someone opens this link, they're taken directly into the interview experience. No accounts, no downloads, no friction — just a conversation.

You can share this link via email, embed it in a recruitment message, post it in a community, or distribute it however you normally reach participants. For more on distribution strategies, see Sharing Your Interview Link.

3. Your Study Becomes Active

Once published, your study moves to an active state. Interviews can begin happening at any time — whenever a participant clicks the link. You'll be able to monitor incoming responses from your dashboard.

Requirements for Publishing

Koji checks that your research brief has the essential components before allowing you to publish. Your brief needs:

• A problem statement — the core question or goal your study addresses
• A methodology — the research framework that guides the interview approach
• Interview questions — at least a core set of questions for the AI interviewer to follow

If any of these are missing or incomplete, Koji will prompt you to fill them in before publishing. This safeguard ensures every live study has enough structure to produce meaningful conversations.

Pre-Publish Checklist

Before you hit publish, take a few minutes to review your study end-to-end. Once interviews start, you'll want to be confident that everything is right. Here's what to check:

Research Brief Review

• Problem statement — Does it clearly and accurately describe what you want to learn?
• Methodology — Is it the right approach for your research question? (See Choosing a Methodology)
• Target audience — Is the description specific enough that you could use it as a recruitment screener?
• Interview questions — Read every question out loud. Do they flow naturally? Are they open-ended and non-leading?
• Probes — Do follow-up questions dig into the right areas? Are they specific enough to be useful?
• Question count — Is the total number of questions realistic for your target interview length?
• Tone and language — Would your target audience understand and feel comfortable with the way questions are worded?

Context and Settings

• Context documents — Have you uploaded any relevant background materials? Are they current and accurate?
• Interview length — Is the target duration appropriate for the depth of questions you're asking?
• Special instructions — Have you added any custom guidance the AI interviewer should follow?

Interview Experience

• Interview mode — Are you using voice, text, or both? Make sure the experience matches your audience's expectations. Learn more about voice interviews and text interviews.
• Branding — Have you customized the look and feel of the interview page to match your brand?

Logistics

• Recruitment plan — Do you know how you'll share the interview link? Do you have your participant list ready?
• Timeline — When do you need results? Allow time for participants to complete interviews at their own pace.
• Team awareness — Does your team know the study is going live? Will they be monitoring incoming results?

How to Publish

Once you're satisfied with your review:

1. Open your study in the design workspace
2. Review the research brief one final time in the artifact panel
3. Click the publish button
4. Koji validates your brief and creates the AI interviewer
5. Your interview link is generated and ready to share

The process takes just a moment. Once published, you'll see your interview link prominently displayed so you can start sharing it right away.

After Publishing

Once your study is live, here's what to expect:

Monitoring Responses

As participants complete interviews, their responses appear in your study dashboard. You can review individual conversations, see how many interviews have been completed, and start identifying patterns. Koji's analysis tools help you make sense of the data as it comes in.

Making Changes After Publishing

If you discover an issue with your study after publishing, you have options:

• Minor adjustments — You can update certain settings without unpublishing
• Significant changes — For substantial modifications to the research brief, you'll need to unpublish, make changes, and republish. Be aware that any interviews conducted before the change used the original brief.

Important: If you've already collected some interviews, think carefully before changing the brief. Mixing data from different versions of the interview can complicate your analysis. In many cases, it's better to finish the current round, analyze what you have, and create a new study for the revised approach.

Pausing and Resuming

If you need to temporarily stop accepting new interviews — perhaps to review early results before continuing recruitment — you can unpublish the study. The interview link will stop working, and existing data is preserved. When you're ready to continue, simply republish.

Common Scenarios

"I published but want to change one question"

If no interviews have been completed yet, unpublish, make the change, and republish. The same interview link will work. If interviews are already in, consider whether the change is significant enough to warrant starting fresh.

"My interview link isn't working"

Make sure your study is in a published (active) state. If you recently made changes and republished, the link should still be the same. If you're sharing the link and participants are having trouble, check that you're copying the full URL.

"I want to run the same study with a different audience"

The best approach is to create a new study. You can use your existing study as a starting point and adjust the target audience description and any audience-specific questions. This keeps your data clean and your analysis straightforward.

"I'm not sure if my study is ready"

If you're unsure, go through the pre-publish checklist above. You can also ask the AI Consultant to review your brief one more time — say something like "Can you review the brief and flag anything I should fix before publishing?" It's always better to spend an extra ten minutes reviewing than to discover an issue after interviews are underway.

Next Steps

Once your study is published, it's time to get participants. Check out these guides for what comes next:

• Sharing Your Interview Link — strategies for distributing your link and recruiting participants
• Customizing Branding — making the interview experience feel like your brand
• Voice Interview Experience — what participants experience in voice mode
• Text Interview Experience — what participants experience in text mode