ux-desktop
UX for Desktop
This skill is a thin medium layer. The reasoning (hierarchy, cognitive load, Gestalt, heuristics, accessibility) lives in ux-first-principles; read that first or alongside. Here is only what the desktop medium changes about applying it — driven by the body-to-device interface, not by which OS it is.
What defines the desktop medium
A precise pointer (mouse/trackpad), a hardware keyboard, a large high-resolution display viewed at ~50–70cm, and the assumption that your app is one of several windows the user has open and will resize. These four facts change six things.
The six things that change
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Target sizing. The cursor is effectively a single point and does not occlude its target, so desktop tolerates small, dense controls (toolbar buttons, menu items, compact rows) that would be untappable on touch. You can exploit screen edges and corners as "infinite" targets: the cursor stops at the edge, so a control flush against it is trivially easy to hit (classic menu-bar and corner placements). Spend this density budget on power, not on cramming.
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Hover exists — and you can rely on it. Desktop has a third state between idle and click: hover. Tooltips, hover-reveal controls, previews, and cursor changes are all legitimate and valuable here. Use hover for progressive disclosure of secondary information and affordances. (This is the single biggest thing that does NOT port to touch — see ux-tablet / ux-mobile.)
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Information density can be high. Large screen + precise pointer + close viewing distance means desktop users can scan dense layouts: multi-column data grids, persistent sidebars and inspectors, smaller type, more visible at once. Higher density is a feature here, not clutter — provided hierarchy and grouping (see compositional reference) keep it organized. Keep text line length readable (~50–75 characters) even when width is plentiful.
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Multi-window and resize resilience. Assume the app runs beside others and gets resized to arbitrary dimensions. Layouts must stay usable from narrow to very wide. Secondary windows, palettes, inspectors, and detached panels are available and often better than cramming everything into one surface. Design for "works at 600px wide and at 2400px wide," not one fixed size.
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Pointer precision unlocks richer interactions. Right-click context menus, hover-preview, fine drag-selection, multi-select with modifier keys, resizable columns, and drag-and-drop are all first-class on desktop. Lean on them for efficiency — but never make them the only path to an action; provide a visible alternative.