The pseudo-classes are used to target elements without having to add extra classes, attributes or ID; that is why it is called in that way, pseudo-class. Throughout our previous posts, we have covered a few new CSS3 pseudo-classes, including :not, :before and :after, :first-of-type and we also use pseudo-classes in some of our tutorials. And in this post we are going to walk through the other new CSS3 pseudo-classes that have not been covered yet. Let’s take a look.

As UI designers, we’re always interested in learning, reading user research, understanding best practices and keeping up to date on all the latest approaches and tactics for building websites and applications. One of the most exciting concepts we’ve started to apply to our thinking is the mobile-first approach, famously pioneered by designer Luke Wroblewski on his blog and then in his subsequent book. Generally, this approach provides a healthy way to gain focus, cut the fat and get to the heart of what’s important — for both content and interaction.

This post should be titled “Getting Ahead of Yourself.” “…By a Few Years,” actually. Here’s the deal: at the time Radu Chelariu is writing this, early 2013, there’s no way to accurately design for the Web using physical units, nor will there be for a very long time. But there is a way to design while knowing the physical characteristics of the device — or, at least, there will be in the very near future.

Responsive Web design has been evolving rapidly ever since Ethan Marcotte coined the term two years ago. Since then, techniques have emerged, become best practices and formed part of our ever-changing methodology. A few obvious examples are the multitude of responsive image techniques, conditional loading, and responsive design and server-side components (RESS), among many other existing and emerging strands stemming from the core concept of responsive Web design.

Hundreds of tools may be available for interaction designers, but there is still no industry standard for interaction design the way Photoshop and Illustrator are to graphic design. Popular programs are out there, but many of them have considerable drawbacks, which has led me to explore alternative apps.

Earlier this year, Jeremy Girard was in the beginning stages of a redesign for the company’s website. They had already been planning to use a straightforward responsive approach to Web design, which is their preferred solution for multi-device support. After hearing some frank discussions at An Event Apart conference in Boston about the limitations and challenges of responsive Web design, he realized that their solution needed a bit of adjustment.

Creating style guides is fast becoming common practice for web designers, especially when dealing with content heavy sites. With a website style guide, designers are able to set and maintain a look and feel by creating a set of rules which the design follows. The process becomes flexible, easily updateable and consistent. During this tutorial Aaron Lumsden is going to demonstrate how you can implement a style guide in your own site or project.

In this tutorial Elliot Ross will look at bringing some of the web’s mobile techniques to HTML email. User take-up of mobile email is massive: some email campaigns get more mobile opens than desktop, yet many marketing emails render poorly on mobile devices. Mobile support on the web has never been better – so if you’re sending emails that drive customers to the web, it makes sense to design mobile friendly emails too.

There are several tactics for deciding where to put breakpoints in a responsive design. There is the rusty idea that they should be based on common screen sizes, but this doesn’t scale well. There are no common screen sizes. Another popular tactic is to create a breakpoint wherever the layout breaks. This sounds much better. But it still leaves you with the question, How do you determine whether the layout is broken? One logical answer is to look at classic readability theory and to define our breakpoints based on that.

As a designer, this is one of the most exciting parts of a new year. Here Kendra Gaines is, trying to figure out what’s going to be big for design trends in 2013. It absolutely makes sense. Web designers have to really be up on all the new trends to be relevant and abreast of what’s next after that trend. Of course responsive design is going to be big this year — it was big last year! And of course she is going to continue designing with grids. That’s basic design! This time around, she wanted to look into some trends that seem to be growing.