A dashboard is an instrument, not a report.
Ether exists so teams stop rebuilding dashboard chrome for every job. It should make change perceptible, decisions faster, and complexity quieter.
This layer is Brand + Guidelines + Foundations + Core components. Next is Canvas, Rail, Panel — the composing patterns. The assumption throughout: dashboards are desktop-primary instruments with a compact companion layout.
Who it is for
Product and design teams composing surfaces for operators. Engineers implementing those surfaces without inventing a private visual language. Operators who live in the instrument: on-call, analysts, admins, ops.
A monitoring wall, an analytics cockpit, an admin console, and a product ops board share one language. They do not share a template. There is no “the Ether dashboard.”
Principles
Five craft rules. They are how vision becomes decisions on a surface.
Signal over chrome
Operators scan. Chrome that competes with data is a defect.
02Compose, don't template
Canvas, rails, panels, density. Purpose decides composition.
03Density with breath
Compact / standard / roomy. Sparse is useless; crushed is unreadable.
04Motion explains change
The event is that something changed. Motion points at the delta.
05Accessible by construction
Contrast, focus, semantics, reduced motion live in tokens.
Where to go
Vision, voice, mark
Why we exist, the five principles, tone, terminology, and assets.
GuidelinesHow the instrument is written
Accessibility floor, writing, microcopy, and internationalisation.
FoundationsTokens the instrument is made of
Color, layout, type, elevation, motion, and iconography.
ComponentsControls the instrument uses
Accordion through tooltip. Live demos, not screenshots.