diff --git a/app/gui/view/graph-editor/Cargo.toml b/app/gui/view/graph-editor/Cargo.toml
index 760d8b24b9b..07fb743d9c0 100644
--- a/app/gui/view/graph-editor/Cargo.toml
+++ b/app/gui/view/graph-editor/Cargo.toml
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ bimap = { version = "0.4.0" }
 enso-config = { version = "0.1.0", path = "../../config" }
 enso-frp = { version = "0.1.0", path = "../../../../lib/rust/frp" }
 enso-logger = { path = "../../../../lib/rust/logger"}
-enso-prelude = { path = "../../../../lib/rust/prelude"}
+enso-prelude = { path = "../../../../lib/rust/prelude", features = ["serde"] }
 engine-protocol = { version = "0.1.0", path = "../../controller/engine-protocol" }
 enso-shapely = { path = "../../../../lib/rust/shapely"}
 enso-text = { version = "0.1.0", path = "../../../../lib/rust/text" }
diff --git a/lib/rust/prelude/src/serde.rs b/lib/rust/prelude/src/serde.rs
index 37290ec75f3..79174bc1a98 100644
--- a/lib/rust/prelude/src/serde.rs
+++ b/lib/rust/prelude/src/serde.rs
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 //! Module for utilities related to serialization/deserialization using the `serde` library.
 
+#[cfg(feature = "serde_json")]
 use serde::Deserialize;
-use serde::Deserializer;
 
 
 
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ use serde::Deserializer;
 pub fn deserialize_or_default<'d, Ret, D>(d: D) -> Result<Ret, D::Error>
 where
     for<'e> Ret: Default + Deserialize<'e>,
-    D: Deserializer<'d>, {
+    D: serde::Deserializer<'d>, {
     // We first parse as generic JSON value. This is necessary to consume parser input.
     // If we just tried parsing the desired type directly and ignored error, we would end up with
     // `trailing characters` error in non-trivial cases.
diff --git a/lib/rust/prelude/src/string.rs b/lib/rust/prelude/src/string.rs
index a207f4e3820..fa96dc11a2a 100644
--- a/lib/rust/prelude/src/string.rs
+++ b/lib/rust/prelude/src/string.rs
@@ -217,12 +217,32 @@ impl PartialEq<ImString> for String {
 // === Macros ===
 
 /// Defines a newtype for `ImString`.
+#[cfg(not(feature = "serde"))]
 #[macro_export]
 macro_rules! im_string_newtype {
+    ($($(#$meta:tt)* $name:ident),* $(,)?) => {
+        im_string_newtype_without_serde!{ $($(#$meta)* $name),* }
+    };
+}
+
+/// Defines a newtype for `ImString`.
+#[cfg(feature = "serde")]
+#[macro_export]
+macro_rules! im_string_newtype {
+    ($($(#$meta:tt)* $name:ident),* $(,)?) => {
+        im_string_newtype_without_serde!{ $(
+            #[derive($crate::serde_reexports::Serialize,$crate::serde_reexports::Deserialize)]
+            $(#$meta)* $name
+        ),* }
+    };
+}
+
+#[macro_export]
+macro_rules! im_string_newtype_without_serde {
     ($($(#$meta:tt)* $name:ident),* $(,)?) => {$(
         $(#$meta)*
         #[derive(Clone,CloneRef,Debug,Default,Eq,Hash,PartialEq)]
-        #[derive($crate::serde_reexports::Serialize,$crate::serde_reexports::Deserialize)]
+
         pub struct $name {
             content : ImString
         }