A computing system includes a virtualization server that runs virtual machine sessions and provides a hosted application with user interface (UI) elements having an ordered hierarchy of graphical control elements when sequenced therethrough. A client computing device accesses the hosted application and receives the ordered hierarchy of graphical control elements and displays the graphical control elements as local virtual UI elements, applies user input to one of the graphical control elements in focus, generates a local virtual UI element graphics overlay for display corresponding to a predicted response to the user input as a next graphical control element in the ordered hierarchy and sends the user input to the virtualization server.