diff --git a/plotly/package_data/graphWidget.js b/plotly/package_data/graphWidget.js
index 4395d6e2b1a..151ceff2445 100644
--- a/plotly/package_data/graphWidget.js
+++ b/plotly/package_data/graphWidget.js
@@ -5,17 +5,8 @@ window.genUID = function() {
     });
 };
 
-var IPYTHON_VERSION = '3';
 
-require(["widgets/js/widget", "widgets/js/manager"], function (widget, manager) {
-    if (!('DOMWidgetView' in widget)) {
-
-        // we're in IPython2, things moved a bit from 2 --> 3.
-        // construct the expected IPython3 widget API
-        IPYTHON_VERSION = '2';
-        manager = {WidgetManager: widget};
-        widget = {DOMWidgetView: IPython.DOMWidgetView};
-    }
+define('graphWidget', ["@jupyter-widgets/base"], function (widget) {
 
     var GraphView = widget.DOMWidgetView.extend({
         render: function(){
@@ -159,7 +150,9 @@ require(["widgets/js/widget", "widgets/js/manager"], function (widget, manager)
     });
 
     // Register the GraphView with the widget manager.
-    manager.WidgetManager.register_widget_view('GraphView', GraphView);
+    return {
+        GraphView: GraphView
+    }
 
 });
 
diff --git a/plotly/widgets/graph_widget.py b/plotly/widgets/graph_widget.py
index f7eb0a86084..451adf223bd 100644
--- a/plotly/widgets/graph_widget.py
+++ b/plotly/widgets/graph_widget.py
@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@
 from requests.compat import json as _json
 
 # TODO: protected imports?
-from IPython.html import widgets
-from IPython.utils.traitlets import Unicode
+import ipywidgets as widgets
+from traitlets import Unicode
 from IPython.display import Javascript, display
 
 import plotly.plotly.plotly as py
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ class GraphWidget(widgets.DOMWidget):
     Notebooks.
     """
     _view_name = Unicode('GraphView', sync=True)
+    _view_module = Unicode('graphWidget', sync=True)
     _message = Unicode(sync=True)
     _graph_url = Unicode(sync=True)
     _new_url = Unicode(sync=True)