End user experience

Above all else, what matters is user experience, which is the measurement of how good or how poor the end user's experience of using their virtual desktop is. When you undertake a server virtualization project, if done correctly, the users will probably not even realize it has happened.

With a desktop virtualization or any other EUC-type project that is very focused on the end users, it is more likely that they will realize a change has happened, and you need to ensure that this is a positive experience for the project to be a success. To do this, you need to almost get inside the head of the users to see exactly how they use the environment today. The measurements of user experience will be wide, varied, and often subjective, but will include elements such as boot time, application load time, login time, page load time, app failures, and finally, how intuitive it is to use. This is something that assessment tools are unlikely to tell you.

As you are progressing through the proof of concept (POC), pilot, and tuning processes, you need to ensure that the user experience is constantly improving. Failing to take end user experience into consideration will result in a definite failure of the project. To do this, you need to be interactive with the end user community.