266 CASE 12 User-Centered Design for Middleware As much as the users liked the Custom view, it was decided that again, due to time constraints, the team would defer this feature until a future release even though it would be a very useful view. It is important to prioritize all the desirable features that could possibly go into a product and remember that there is always another release. In the end, the Virtual Machines & Templates view and the Hosts & Clusters view made the cut, but not the My Inventory and Custom views. This was deemed a reasonable compromise that fit into the timeframe and allowed for growth in future releases. Summary VMware introduced a new conceptual design to the market that allowed users to consolidate their servers and save space, money, and time. But this concept of virtualization was so new there was no precedent for how users would interact with such a system. The company did several things to ensure that these new products would be easy for users to learn and use: 1. Hired an interaction designer, who · Used his past experience to conceive of a new conceptual design · Hired the user experience team to keep up with new work · Hired an outside usability consultant to provide unbiased feedback from the user 2. Conducted a CI of VirtualCenter 1.0, which · Validated the conceptual design · Gathered information about the customer's organization, business models, and workflow · Set the stage for the product direction for subsequent releases (1.1, 1.2, and, ultimately, 2.0) 3. Applied UCD to the development of VirtualCenter 2.0: · Obtained feedback from users during the first VMworld User Conference · Prototyped several ideas for the new features · Conducted usability testing on the new feature prototypes VirtualCenter 2.0 and ESX Server 3.0 were recently released as a combined product called VMware Infrastructure 3 to a very excited customer base. The benefits of this next generation product--automated load balancing, clustering