Radicle Desktop
Your Code on Your Machine
- Company
- Radicle
- Role
- Design, Prototype, User research
- Year
- 2024
- Tags
- UX, UI, Front End
- Tech
- Figma, Svelte
Summary
Desktop app for Radicle, a decentralized peer-to-peer code collaboration platform. Manage issues, patches, code review, and notifications. Write and review offline, sync when back online.
Problem
Radicle's peer-to-peer, local-first model doesn't map neatly onto mental models from GitHub. Every design decision had to bridge that gap honestly without hiding what makes Radicle different.
Process
Per-feature loop: understand user need + protocol behaviour → hypothesis → wireframes → prototype → high-fidelity handoff. Validated with users and engineering team. Key challenge: patches in Radicle have revisions and each peer may be at a different revision — making this visible without overwhelming users.
Outcome
Shipped and still downloadable. Daniel designed the app across patches, code review and notifications, including the patch page that made revisions and per-peer state legible instead of hiding them behind a GitHub-style single diff. The design has since moved on.
Principles
- App mirrors the underlying protocol and CLI tools closely — no mental model switching
- Everything in Radicle is immutable and signed — UI reflects that
- Local-first: relies on seed nodes for peer discovery
Best for
- Developer tools
- open source products
- rigorous user research
- local-first/offline-first apps