Yes the SSD will work fine in a desktop machine. As long as the motherboard is new enough to have SATA connections, you won't have a problem.
Still, this is not the first move I'd make to improve the performance of the machine. It may be more hassle than it's worth.
- 16GB is small...It'll work for a system drive to run the OS but it's too small to hold additional programs and applications. Remember you always need some free space breathing room for swap and temporary files.
- About the only thing I'd use a 16GB drive for is OS swap and Photoshop swap files. That's it. Maybe a replacement netbook drive.
- You are likely to get better performance increases (and save yourself a ton of re-installation time) by clearing out bloatware and startup items. Then defrag (but don't defrag an SSD).