10 Reasons You should use Salesforce Lightning Design System and Why it is Awesome?

1. Consistency

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) offers a consistent and unified look on Salesforce applications by providing standardized UI components and design guidelines designed to work seamlessly with Salesforce's Lightning Experience.

These UI components include buttons, forms, cards, tables, grids, icons, and many others, all designed to have a consistent look and feel across different devices and platforms. Using these pre-built components, developers can ensure that their applications have a unified look and feel consistent with the Salesforce user interface.

In addition, SLDS also provides a set of design guidelines that help developers create visually appealing and accessible user interfaces consistent with Salesforce's branding and design language. These guidelines cover typography, color, spacing, and accessibility and provide best practices and recommendations for designing high-quality user interfaces.

By providing a standardized set of UI components and design guidelines, SLDS helps ensure that Salesforce applications have a consistent and unified look and feel, regardless of who developed them or what device they are accessed from.

2.Time-saving

SLDS allows developers to quickly build responsive and visually appealing web applications by leveraging pre-built UI components and design guidelines. Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) saves time for developers by providing pre-built user interface (UI) components and design guidelines that can be quickly and easily integrated into their web applications.

Instead of spending time designing and coding custom UI components from scratch, developers can leverage the pre-built components and design guidelines provided by SLDS to build responsive and visually appealing applications quickly.

In addition, SLDS provides a range of customization options, including a set of design tokens that allow developers to customize the look and feel of their applications to match their brand or visual design requirements. This reduces the time and effort required to design and build custom UI components, as developers can simply adjust the existing SLDS components to fit their needs.

SLDS is designed to be highly scalable, making it suitable for small-scale and large-scale applications. This means developers can use the same pre-built components and design guidelines across all their Salesforce applications, saving time and effort in the long run.

Overall, by providing pre-built UI components, design guidelines, and customization options, SLDS helps developers save time and effort in the development of web applications, allowing them to focus on other critical aspects of the application development process.

3. Scalability

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) is designed to be highly scalable, meaning that it can be used to build applications of any size, from small-scale to enterprise-level applications.

One key factor that makes SLDS scalable is the use of pre-built UI components designed to work seamlessly with each other. These components are built to be modular, meaning they can be easily combined and customized to meet the specific needs of different applications.

Another factor that makes SLDS scalable is the extensive documentation and resources that are available to developers. These resources include code samples, design guidelines, best practices, and tutorials, which can help developers quickly learn how to use SLDS and build high-quality applications.

Providing pre-built UI components, customization options, and extensive documentation makes SLDS highly scalable and can be used to build applications of any size and complexity.

4. Accessibility

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) is designed with accessibility in mind, making it easy for developers to build applications that are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

SLDS provides a range of accessibility features and guidelines that comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, ensuring that applications built using SLDS are accessible to all users. Some of the key accessibility features of SLDS include:

• Keyboard accessibility: All SLDS components can be accessed using a keyboard, making them accessible to users who cannot use a mouse.
•  Screen reader support: SLDS components are designed to be easily read by screen readers, allowing users who are blind or visually impaired to access the application.
• Color contrast: SLDS provides guidelines for color contrast, ensuring that text and other UI elements are easily distinguishable for low-vision users.
• Focus management: SLDS provides guidelines for focusing, ensuring that users can easily navigate and interact with the application using assistive technologies.
• ARIA support: SLDS supports Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA), which provides additional accessibility features for users with disabilities.

In addition, by providing accessibility features and guidelines, SLDS helps ensure that applications built using the Lightning Design System are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities.

5. Cross-platform

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) is designed to be cross-platform compatible. It can be used to build applications for various devices and platforms, including desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

SLDS is built using web standards such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, supported by all modern web browsers and mobile devices. This makes it easy for developers to build cross-platform applications using SLDS, as they can use the same codebase across all devices and platforms.

Moreover, SLDS provides various responsive UI components designed to adapt to different screen sizes and device types. This ensures that applications built using SLDS are optimized for use on other devices, providing a consistent user experience across all platforms.

By being cross-platform compatible, SLDS makes it easy for developers to build responsive and visually appealing applications that can be accessed from a wide range of devices and platforms.

6.Branding

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) can be a powerful tool for branding, as it provides a range of customization options that allow developers to create applications consistent with their organization's branding and visual design guidelines.

SLDS provides a range of design tokens that can be used to customize the look and feel of an application, including colors, fonts, and spacing. This allows developers to easily match their organization's branding and visual design guidelines, making their applications instantly recognizable and consistent with their organization's overall branding strategy.

In addition, SLDS provides a range of pre-built UI components that can be customized to match an organization's branding. For example, developers can easily change the colour palette of a button or a form field to fit their organization's branding, ensuring that the application looks and feels like a natural extension of their brand.

SLDS provides design guidelines and best practices that help developers create visually appealing and consistent applications that align with their organization's branding strategy.

These guidelines cover topics such as typography, color theory, and layout, providing developers with the tools they need to create visually appealing applications consistent with their organization's brand.

By providing customization options, pre-built UI components, and design guidelines, SLDS can help developers create applications consistent with their organization's branding and visual design guidelines, ensuring that their applications look and feel like a natural extension of their brand.

7. Flexibility

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) provides a flexible framework that allows developers to create custom UI components and extend the functionality of existing features as needed. This enables developers to create highly customized and specialized applications that meet the specific needs of their users.

SLDS provides a set of pre-built UI components that can be customized and combined to create new and unique features. These components are built using web standards such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are widely supported and familiar to developers. This makes it easy for developers to create custom components using SLDS, as they can leverage their existing knowledge and skills.

Furthermore, SLDS provides a range of APIs and events that allow developers to extend the functionality of existing components. This will enable developers to add custom logic and behavior to components, making them more specialized and tailored to the specific needs of their application.

In addition, SLDS provides a range of design guidelines and best practices that help developers create custom components consistent with the overall design language of SLDS. This ensures that custom components integrate seamlessly with existing features and provide a consistent user experience.

Providing a flexible framework for creating custom components and extending the functionality of existing components, SLDS enables developers to create highly specialized and customized applications that meet the specific needs of their users.

8. Support

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) is well-supported by the Salesforce community, which includes a large number of developers, designers, and users who contribute to the development and improvement of SLDS.

One of the key resources available to developers is the SLDS website, which provides comprehensive documentation and resources for building applications using SLDS. This includes design guidelines, code samples, best practices, and tutorials, which can help developers quickly learn how to use SLDS and build high-quality applications.

In addition to the SLDS website, the Salesforce community provides a range of forums, groups, and communities where developers can connect with other developers, share knowledge and ideas, and get help with technical issues. This includes the Salesforce Developer Community, which provides access to resources and support, including forums, documentation, and training.

Moreover, Salesforce provides various resources and support for developers, including training programs, certification programs, and developer events like Dreamforce and TrailheaDX.

Overall, by providing a wide range of resources and support, including documentation, forums, groups, and events, the Salesforce community helps developers quickly learn and effectively use SLDS to build high-quality, visually appealing, and responsive applications.

9.Integration

Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) is designed to integrate seamlessly with other Salesforce products and services, including the Lightning Platform, Salesforce CRM, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

One of the key advantages of using SLDS is that it provides a consistent and unified look and feel across different Salesforce products and services. This means that developers can use the same pre-built UI components and design guidelines to build applications that seamlessly integrate with other Salesforce products and services.

For example:- developers can use SLDS to build custom applications that run on the Lightning Platform, a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that provides various development tools and services for building, deploying, and managing applications.

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SLDS provides a range of UI components optimized for use with the Lightning Platform, making it easy for developers to build responsive, visually appealing, and scalable applications that integrate seamlessly with other Salesforce services, such as Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Similarly, SLDS is optimized for use with Salesforce CRM, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides various tools and services for managing customer data, sales, marketing, and customer service. Developers can use SLDS to build custom applications that integrate with Salesforce CRM, providing a consistent and unified user experience for users interacting with different Salesforce services.

Finally, SLDS integrates seamlessly with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, a marketing automation platform that provides various tools and services for creating and managing marketing campaigns. Developers can use SLDS to build custom applications that integrate with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, providing a consistent and unified user experience for users interacting with different Salesforce services.

10. Future Proof

SLDS is continuously updated and improved by Salesforce, ensuring that developers can take advantage of their applications' latest features and functionality.

Here are some points explaining how SLDS is continuously updated and improved by Salesforce:

• Regular Updates: Salesforce releases regular updates to SLDS to add new UI components, improve existing features, and update design guidelines.
• Feedback from Developers: Salesforce actively seeks feedback from developers who use SLDS to identify improvement areas and prioritize new features and functionality.
• Community Contributions: The Salesforce community actively contributes to the development and improvement of SLDS, including submitting bug reports, contributing code, and providing feedback on design guidelines.
• User Research: Salesforce conducts user research to identify trends and patterns in user behavior, which helps to inform the development of new UI components and design guidelines.
• Integration with Salesforce Services: SLDS is designed to integrate seamlessly with other Salesforce services, such as Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This ensures developers can take advantage of their applications' latest features and functionality.
• Design Tokens: SLDS provides a range of design tokens that allow developers to customize the look and feel of their applications. This means that developers can take advantage of their applications' latest design trends and best practices.
• Design System Manager: The Design System Manager is a tool that allows developers to manage and customize SLDS components and design guidelines. This ensures that developers can easily update their applications to take advantage of the latest features and functionality in SLDS.

By continuously updating and improving SLDS, Salesforce ensures that developers can take advantage of their applications' latest features and functionality while maintaining a consistent and unified user experience across different Salesforce services.

Now you know why using the Salesforce Lightning Design System is awesome, in our next section, we will tell you how to use the Lightning design system and optimize your website design.