Company
Date Published
Author
Adam Seckel
Word count
1180
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

We built an internal design system using reusable Ember components to simplify the construction of interactive data visualizations within our admin app, allowing any Intercom product engineer to easily make changes without needing to learn new patterns. This approach enabled us to break away from the industry standard tool D3, which required a different way of thinking about UI and was not one of our standard technologies. By using plain HTML components for presentational parts and composing them with data components, we could build complex visualizations while maintaining consistency in behavior and appearance. Our system also leveraged CSS 3D transforms to improve animation performance, resulting in improved product quality, speed, and iteration, as well as increased accessibility to all engineers at Intercom.