The respondent journey

This page describes what a person sees during a sitting, every state a sitting can end in, and how to answer common support questions. It is written for implementation leads, operations staff and support desks. Engineers should read sections 6 and 7.

For what each assessment is and who can commission it, see what Kirnova delivers. For the technical reference, see the partner API reference.

1. The journey at a glance#

Copy   YOUR SYSTEM                    KIRNOVA                        THE PERSON
   -----------                    -------                        ----------

1. You decide to
   assess someone
        |
        v
2. You request a     -------->  Kirnova checks your
   one-use start link,          account, your entitlements
   naming the person            and the person's identity
        |                              |
        v                              v
3. You show the      <--------  Kirnova creates the sitting  -------->  4. The person answers
   sitting in a                 and the person's                         one short screen at
   frame in your                Kirnova record                           a time. Answers save
   product                                                               as they go
        |                                                                  |
        |                                                                  v
        |                                                              5. They review and
        |                                                                 submit
        |                                                                  |
        v                                                                  v
6. Your page is      <--------  Kirnova scores the sitting  -------->  7. They see a short
   told the sitting             from the raw answers,                    completion screen
   finished                     stores the result and                    and their reading,
        |                       sends it to you                          unless you hid it
        v
8. You read the
   result back

Steps 1, 3, 6 and 8 are yours. Steps 2, 5 and 7 are Kirnova's. Step 4 is the person's.

This applies to TIGER Core and TIGER Student. On a Kirnova Calling sitting, step 6 does not happen because nothing in the browser tells your page the sitting finished. Steps 7 and 8 still apply: the person sees their careers reading, and the result is delivered to you and can be read back.

Two operational points:

• The result is stored from the moment the person submits, before you are told anything.
• The person's Kirnova record is created at step 2, not step 7, so someone who starts and never finishes still has a record.

2. In a frame inside your product#

This is the common case. The assessment runs inside your page, and the person never leaves your product.

1. You request a sitting for a named person. You say who they are and, if your account can run more than one assessment, which one. Kirnova returns a one-use start link that is valid for 5 minutes. Do not email it or save it for later. Hand it to the frame immediately.

2. You put the link in a frame on your page. The person does not navigate away.

3. Kirnova checks before showing anything. It checks that the link is genuine and unexpired, that the request comes from a site you registered, that your account holds the requested assessment and can serve it on this surface, and that the person can be identified. If any check fails, the frame shows a plain unbranded card saying the assessment is unavailable, with a short reason. It does not mention your account, your settings or Kirnova.

4. A short notice appears first. Headed "Before you begin", it asks the person to read six points and press I understand and acknowledge. No question appears until they do. The points are:

   1. The results may not appear due to technical difficulties (this is rare but it can happen).
   2. A smartphone may not give you the best presentation of the results. We recommend using a computer or a tablet.
   3. Your results may not match your own perceptions.
   4. Your results are not a clinical assessment.
   5. We cannot discuss your results with you.
   6. Your responses may be aggregated with others' and used for research.

   The notice carries no Kirnova name, link or contact address, so your desk is the person's support route. It is not shown again if the person returns on the same link, but a fresh link shows it again. Pressing the button is not consent to anything, and it does not replace the disclosures in section 4.

5. The first question screen appears. There is no sign-in, account creation step or welcome page. The person sees the assessment name, a one-paragraph instruction, a progress rail and their first questions.

6. They answer one short screen at a time (section 5).

7. They review and submit. On TIGER Core and TIGER Student, the last step is a list of every question with the answer given and an Edit control, so the person can fix a misread question before scoring.

8. They see a completion screen. By default this shows their own reading. If you asked for no reading to be shown, they see "Thank you — your answers are saved. You have finished. You can close this window."

9. On TIGER Core and TIGER Student, your page receives a browser message that the sitting finished. The message carries no answers or scores, only the sitting it refers to. Use it to update your interface, not as your record. A Kirnova Calling sitting sends no such message, because the return address you supply is used when someone leaves part-way, not when they finish. Do not make your page wait for a browser signal on Calling.

10. On every assessment, Kirnova stores the result and sends it to you as a signed delivery to your webhook address. If your endpoint does not answer, Kirnova retries. You can also request the result directly. This includes Kirnova Calling.

The person never sees a Kirnova sign-in and cannot reach one from inside your frame. Every way out of the sitting goes through one place, and inside a partner frame that place does not navigate. If you supplied a return address, the person is sent there when they finish or confirm they are leaving. Otherwise the frame stays where it is and tells them they can close the window.

Inside your frame, the sitting uses your styling where the assessment supports it and does not say who commissioned it. The disclosures in section 4 are therefore your responsibility.

3. When the person is sent a link#

The start link from the API cannot be emailed. It lives 5 minutes and is meant to be loaded immediately. Someone who opens it an hour later sees a card saying the link has expired. If your process is "email the candidate and let them sit it later", do not build it on that link.

Kirnova invitations#

A decision-maker, such as a recruiter, employer or organisation, can commission a TIGER Core sitting for a named person from inside Kirnova. The person then:

1. Receives an email naming the assessment and carrying a link tied to that invitation.
2. Opens it and signs in, with their email address pre-filled. They can use a one-time code, a sign-in link or Google.
3. Can use the link only if it was sent to them. If a different signed-in person opens a forwarded link, they are told the link is not theirs, without being told whose it is.
4. Lands on their own Kirnova dashboard with nothing waiting if the invitation was cancelled. The link stops working immediately.
5. Is asked for their name and nothing else. A person who signed in with Google already has a name and skips this.
6. Starts the sitting on Kirnova's own pages, not in your frame. It runs as described in section 5.
7. Finds their reading on their dashboard when they finish, and the person who commissioned the sitting is told a result exists.

On this route the person has a Kirnova account they signed into themselves, so "I can't get in" is a sign-in problem you can help with. On the framed route there is no sign-in, so "I can't get in" is always about the link or the frame.

Your own interface#

If your engineers drive the assessment directly, every screen the person sees is yours. Kirnova supplies the questions a page at a time and takes back the answers. Sections 5 and 6 do not describe your screens. These rules still apply: the person must be identifiable before the sitting starts, answers cannot be changed once submitted, pages must be answered in order, and Kirnova scores the sitting from the raw answers.

4. What to tell the person before they start#

Kirnova does not collect the person's agreement on your behalf when you commission a sitting. On the framed and machine-driven routes, Kirnova assesses the person you name. Telling them what is happening is your responsibility, and it is the most common cause of complaints.

Before the person begins, tell them:

1. Who is asking. Your organisation's name, and the organisation the result is for if different.
2. Why. The decision or process the assessment is part of.
3. That a result may inform a decision about them and will not make one by itself. There is no pass mark and no automated rejection in Kirnova, and nothing in it can be configured into one. A person weighs the result alongside other information.
4. Who will see it. Name roles, not "our team". On Kirnova's side access is organisational and narrow.
5. That it is not timed and answers save as they go. This changes how people answer and prevents the two most common support calls.
6. How long it takes (section 5).
7. That they will keep their own copy of the result permanently, and have a Kirnova account they can sign into with the same email address.
8. Who to contact about their data. Your privacy contact, and Kirnova's: team@kirnova.com. Kirnova is operated by Kirnova Systems, Nashik, Maharashtra, India, under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023.
9. That the frame shows a short notice first, which they must accept before the questions start (section 2, step 4). One point says their responses may be aggregated with others' and used for research. If that does not suit your process, tell them first and raise it with Kirnova.

Kirnova is for adults aged 18 and over. Do not send anyone under 18 to a sitting.

5. The screens#

Layout#

A screen carries at most six questions on every Kirnova assessment. This is a rule about Kirnova's screens. If you drive the sitting yourself, Kirnova gives you the assessment's own, larger pages and you decide how to split them.

Each question screen shows, from top to bottom: the assessment name, a single instruction line, a progress rail showing the current screen and how much is done, and then the numbered questions, each with a row of answer buttons and a tick once answered. At the bottom are Back and, on TIGER, Continue. Continue becomes Finish on the last question screen, and the review list that follows shows Submit. On Kirnova Calling the forward button reads Next, and Finish on the last screen.

Above the questions is one more control, Exit assessment. There is no menu, account link or Kirnova navigation.

Answering#

Each question takes one answer from a fixed row of buttons. The number and wording of buttons depend on the question type:

• Five agreement buttons for personality questions.
• Five liking buttons for interest questions on TIGER Student and on the 30- and 60-activity Kirnova Calling lengths.
• Three buttons (Dislike, Unsure, Like) on the 180-activity Calling length, which uses its published source's three-point scale.

There is no typing, slider or free text. Continue stays unavailable until every question on the screen has an answer. Nothing can be skipped, and there is no "prefer not to say".

Some TIGER sittings end with a short extra exercise. It shows groups of four statements, and the person picks the one most like them and the one least like them. The other two stay blank. Each group has its own instruction, and a line names what is outstanding if the person tries to continue too early. Only some sittings include it.

Timing#

There is no timer or countdown. Nobody is penalised for taking longer, and speed is never rewarded. The progress rail reflects only how much has been answered.

Change question#

Most questions have a Change question button that swaps the wording for a different question about the same thing. It helps a person who cannot place themselves against a statement. It changes the wording only. It never changes an answer already given, and using it clears that one answer so it can be given again.

The button does not appear on the two attention checks, because a check is not a question about the person and no replacement exists. It is also absent from the fixed interests block in TIGER Student and from all three Kirnova Calling lengths, because each is a complete published set.

Asking the person to look again#

Occasionally, on moving to the next screen, a question returns with a short note:

• "No rush — please read this one again." The answer arrived faster than the words could be read.
• "Please re-read this one." An attention check was not followed.

The earlier answer is cleared and the person answers again. This happens at most once per question. It depends only on speed or on whether an instruction was followed, never on what was answered.

Accounts with no configured assessment#

An account with no assessments configured cannot start anything. A request for a start link is refused, so no sitting opens. Contact Kirnova if you are unsure what your account runs.

6. Sitting states#

"Still open" is not a stored end state. A sitting that is never finished stays open, and no process closes it. A lapsed sitting window costs the person only the link, not their answers.

7. Resuming and time limits#

Answers are safe. Links expire.

What is saved#

Every screen is written to Kirnova's servers as soon as it is complete, before the person presses Continue. At most, someone loses the answers on the screen in front of them, and only if their device stops before they finish it.

The record is held on Kirnova's side and merged rather than overwritten, so a refresh, a reconnect or a second device never conflict.

What each event does#

This self-healing finish applies to TIGER Core and TIGER Student. On Kirnova Calling and the earlier behavioural assessment, a failed finish shows an error with a Retry button, and the person must press it. Answers are safe either way.

Time limits#

• Start link: 5 minutes, meant for immediate use. Presenting the same link again within that time puts the person back into the same sitting. After it, the link is dead even though the sitting behind it is untouched.
• Sitting window: 47 minutes, and nothing extends it. In a frame, the window is counted from when the start link expires, so a link handed straight to the frame gives the person roughly 52 minutes in practice. On the machine-driven interface it runs from when the sitting is created. Nobody is stopped mid-question. What lapses is the ability to continue on that link, and a fresh link picks the sitting up.
• Answers: no expiry. An unfinished sitting is not swept away or deleted.

Session identifiers after a fresh link#

A fresh link means a new session identifier. Answers, questions and their order survive. The identifier does not: the session the first link opened will never complete, nothing is delivered against it, and the result arrives under the identifier of the session the person finished in. If you key your records on session identifier, write the new one into your record whenever you issue a replacement link.

When resumption is not possible#

Someone you identified only by your own identifier or a phone number, with no email address, cannot be recognised as the same person on a later link. They start a new sitting from the beginning. Their earlier answers are kept but attached to a person Kirnova cannot match to the new visit. If candidates may need more than one visit, send an email address.

8. What the person receives#

The person keeps their result permanently. It is on their own Kirnova record, and ending your relationship with Kirnova or closing your account does not remove it.

Every partner sitting creates an identified person on the platform, and there is no anonymous path. If the email address you supplied already belongs to a Kirnova account, Kirnova uses that account. The person can sign in at any time with that address, with no password, and find their reading on their dashboard.

On the completion screen, unless you asked for no reading, the person sees their reading on the five TIGER dimensions, each with its range, what stands out as strongest within their own profile, and what is worth a closer look. There is no download button on a TIGER sitting inside your frame.

Neither the person nor you receives any description of how a reading is calculated. Nothing Kirnova displays or sends contains formulas, weightings or rules.

The quality note#

If a person rushed, gave the same answer throughout, contradicted themselves or did not follow the two checks, the result is not hidden or discarded. Kirnova widens the reading and attaches one sentence:

"Your answers in this sitting did not meet our quality checks, so this result should not be used for a decision. We recommend sitting it again."

The buyer's and partner's copy begins "The answers in this sitting…" and ends "A new sitting is recommended before relying on it." The meaning is the same. The sentence recommends a new sitting and promises nothing about a free re-sit.

Everyone sees the same sentence, the person and the buyer. Where it is present, the sitting is not decision-grade, and you must show it wherever you show the scores. To arrange another sitting on a partner route, start a new one.

9. Devices and accessibility#

• Phones are supported. Answer buttons meet the standard minimum touch target size, and the layout is built for narrow screens first.
• No timer. Nobody is disadvantaged by reading slowly. Answering faster than the words can be read is the only speed the product reacts to, and it reacts by asking the person to look again.
• Keyboard operation works throughout, with a visible focus outline on every control.
• Screen reader announcements cover the progress rail, the completion screen and the most/least exercise, whose two columns are labelled.
• Light and dark presentation. The frame follows the theme your account sets.
• Brand colour. If your account sets a primary colour, the frame lightens or darkens it where needed to keep text and controls readable. The keyboard focus outline is never recoloured.
• Browser support. The person's browser must allow the frame. See the first row of the support table.

Kirnova does not claim conformance with any accessibility standard.

10. Support guide#

"Yours" means your desk can resolve it. "Kirnova" means send it to team@kirnova.com rather than improvising an answer.

What to send when you escalate#

Send four things and nothing else: the sitting or session identifier, roughly when it happened, whether it happened on Kirnova staging (where you test) or on production, and exactly what the person saw, quoted. Do not send the person's answers.