Across the Industry

Eliminating the Friction Tax: Why Auditing the Candidate Journey Is a Necessity

In the credentialing community, we spend years perfecting the psychometric validity of our assessments. It’s a constant cycle of improvement for test-development activities like job task analyses and cut-score studies to make sure that our exams are fair, reliable and valid. However, we often overlook a critical part that can undermine the technical rigor: the user journey. 

The user journey, also referred to as the candidate journey, is the process a test taker goes through before, during and after testing. It explores the aspects of how a candidate psychologically and technically interacts with an organization. When a test taker meets friction points like clunky registration portals or broken single-sign on (SSO) loops, they are inconvenienced. They are taxed. This “friction tax”represents the unnecessary cognitive and emotional cost paid by the candidate before they even sit for the exam. Friction tax can: 

  • Influence candidate performance 
  • Introduce construct-irrelevant variance 
  • Damage brand perception 
  • Reduce long-term credential value 

Unfortunately, that can result in the assessment measuring their ability to navigate procedural barriers in addition to their actual competency. In the age of AI, as our industry commits to more agile models that keep humans in the loop, we must recognize that the friction tax is a threat to the validity of the measurement itself and also to your organization's reputation. This is why credentialing programs should audit and reduce friction across the life cycle.

Anxiety Devalues the Credential

To understand the long-term impact of the friction tax, we must dive deep into how candidates encode and recall their experience with a certifying body. 

Peak-End Rule and Brand Recall

We’ve all been there; one negative thing that overshadows an entire experience. It’s a shame, but there is a term for it: the peak-end rule (Figure A). Daniel Kahneman [1], a Nobel Prize laureate, hypothesized that people don’t evaluate experiences by the sum of their parts. Instead, we anchor our memory to two points: the peak (the most intense emotional moment) and the end.

When we relate this to credentialing, the peak is almost always the exam itself, reflecting a high-stress and high- to mid-stakes event. If the candidate's lead-up to the exam (or peak) is met with friction tax, the candidate enters the assessment in a state of cognitive fatigue and heightened cortisol. When it is time to deliver the candidates score report,  if it is delayed or communicated through a confusing portal, the entire memory of the experience and the organization can be soured.

So even if the exam is psychometrically sound, the candidate may remember the bureaucracy more than the achievement. 

Figure A: Peak-End Rule 

Cognitive Load and the Perception of Quality

Cognitive Load Theory [2] suggests that our working memory has a limited capacity. When a test program forces a candidate to navigate redundant forms or non-intuitive dashboards, it imposes irrelevant cognitive load. For a certifying body, this is a strategic failure. In the mind of the candidate, the quality of the user interface is a proxy for the quality of the certification. A high friction tax experience signals a legacy institution that is disconnected with modern digital expectations such as easy scheduling, fast check-in processes, or instant performance insights.

Motivation Isn't a Cure for Friction 

A common misconception is that because a certification is a "must-have" (non-voluntary, in some cases) for career advancement, candidates will tolerate administrative burden. This assumes that high motivation is the only driver of action.

However, the Fogg Behavior Model [3], illustrated in Figure B, shows that three elements must meet at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability and a Prompt. The simplest form of the Fogg Behavior Model is “B=MAP.”

Figure B: Fogg Behavior Model 

This means for most test programs, Motivation is essential. The candidate desires the credential for a reason, likely their livelihood or career advancement. However, if the task is hard to execute because of a friction tax (Ability), the behavior doesn’t occur.  In some cases, increasing Ability could be a more cost-effective path than trying to increase Motivation through marketing campaigns to attract more candidates. For example, it is far cheaper to fix a "broken" registration button or simplify a 15-field form (Ability) than it is to run a $50,000 "Why You Should Get Certified" ad campaign (Motivation).

Identifying the Leaks 

To locate the friction tax within a candidate journey, organizations should perform a deep audit of the full life cycle, by walking in the candidate’s shoes throughout the entire process. Often, a third-party audit is most appropriate because internal teams may be working too close to the process to see these issues. These leaks can vary significantly depending on test program setup, delivery models, scoring availability, budget and more. However, these leaks typically occur in four critical phases, which are explored below. 

  1. The preregistration information gap: Many programs inadvertently rely on "community knowledge" or legacy documentation. When a candidate's first interaction is a long-form, unsearchable PDF handbook, the inherent cognitive load is immediate. If a professional can’t determine their own eligibility within a few minutes of landing on your site, they may abandon the journey and compare it to a competing credential. 
  2. The infrastructure loop (the SSO failure): The most common place of systemic friction is the technical handoff between the  certifying body and the test delivery provider (and other tech-related issues). Broken SSO loops force candidates to manage multiple credentials or encounter errors, sometimes immediately before the assessment begins, depending on the delivery model. This introduces threat-response anxiety that can directly impact exam performance. 
  3. The post-exam vacuum and identity shift: The candidate journey doesn’t end at the "submit" button.  Vague score reports that provide a pass/fail status without a clear next step or roadmap lead to lower retest or recertification rates.  Pass candidates who must wait weeks for a digital badge miss the window of peak organization advocacy. The end of the experience determines their final perception of the organization. 
  4. The internal silo: Sometimes friction is a symptom of organizational silos and functional misalignment that means departments focus on their own "finish line" rather than the candidate's journey. For example, when every department, from Legal to Marketing, speak different jargons, the result is a disjointed candidate experience. When each team member has its own motives and goals, it may accidentally create a process that is functional  but challenging to navigate.

From Legacy to Agile 

Reducing friction is an act of stewardship for the profession. By identifying and eliminating the friction tax via a thorough user journey audit, the market value of the credential is protected,  the path to certification is as valid as the exam itself and the brand’s integrity is protected. Auditing the candidate journey is the first step to eliminating the friction tax. Stay tuned for part 2 in this series for ideas on practical steps that your organization can take to ease frustrations in credentialing

References

  1. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. https://ia800603.us.archive.org/10/items/DanielKahnemanThinkingFastAndSlow/Daniel%20Kahneman-Thinking%2C%20Fast%20and%20Slow%20%20.pdf 
  2. Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning. Cognitive Science. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0364021388900237 
  3. Fogg, B.J. (2009).  A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design. Stanford University. https://behaviordesign.stanford.edu/resources/fogg-behavior-model