For Colleges and Universities, what benefits matter most in choosing your virtual desktop solution?

When Propeller was founded, we knew student experience needed to come first. We make it our top priority when serving clients, and the statistics agree.

During our recent EDUCAUSE Industry Insights webinar, Access Granted: Practical Examples of Virtual Desktop Solutions in Higher Education, we surveyed CIOs and technology professionals to find out what their biggest concerns were.

Of 320 participants, 45% said that ease of use for students and faculty was the benefit they were most interested in achieving.

Read on for the rest of the survey results and to learn how your faculty and students benefit from excellent user experience in their virtual desktops.

Survey Results: The Most Important Aspects of VDI for Education

When asked about their goals for virtual desktops in the coming year, 47% of participants indicated that they currently use virtual desktops but need to use them more efficiently or plan to scale to serve more students.

What benefits were they most interested in achieving?

• 45% said ease of use was most important
• 32% indicated greater access and equity for students
• 19% listed cost savings for the institution

The Importance of User Experience in Higher Ed

The corporate world focuses on user experience with technology. But in all honestly, difficult navigation or multiple steps won’t stop an employee from completing their work.

In higher education, user experience is critical for many reasons, including:

• Student engagement
• Student retention
• Student success
• Faculty buy-in
• Faculty satisfaction
• Easing the burden for IT staff

Students Benefit from Easy-to-Use VDI

For students, difficulties create barriers to education. As an increasing number of American adults lose confidence in the value of higher education, it’s more important than ever to make every effort to improve student experience.

When virtual desktops are easy to launch and navigate, students gain access to courses and applications. This saves them steps and money because they don’t need to invest in expensive hardware or software for their courses.

A good VDI functions well, so students easily log in to the environments for their classes, find what they need, and focus on their learning. It should work so innately and so well that students don’t even think about it.

They won’t notice the work that goes into the backend. But the ability to get what they need when they need it allows them to concentrate on their success. It improves satisfaction with their college experience and increases student retention.

Ease of Use Helps Increase Faculty Buy-In

You want a solution that faculty loves to use. When we sat down with UC Berkeley’s Natalie Montañez to talk about their virtual desktops, she talked about user experience in building faculty buy-in.

Virtual desktops offering intuitive design that’s easy to use enable your faculty to focus on students, teaching, and all the things they’re passionate about.

Virtual Desktops Take the Burden off Your IT Staff & Budget

With the right virtual desktop provider, your VDI makes the process easier for your internal IT staff. You can save hours in implementation, they won’t be taxed with trouble shooting issues for faculty or students, and you can even save hours in monitoring in-person labs.

Want to learn more about implementing virtual desktops that put user experience first? Propeller’s solution is the only one made for education, created to be intuitive for you.

Contact us today to learn more.