Teacher: “Mary, what do you think should happen in a Web browser when the user presses Ctrl-T?”

Mary: “It should open a new tab with either a blank page or your home page. Some browsers show most recently visited sites. In any case, it should be easily configured”.

Teacher: “Good girl! When I was as young, as you I also thought so.  I assumed that browser vendor thinks of the user first and would hire a usability expert budget permitting.”

Mary: “Are there still some poor vendors who can’t afford hiring usability experts? Are you talking about vendors from under-developed countries?”

Teacher: “No, I’m talking about Google. They are pretty good if the application’s UI consists of just one text field and a button. Anything more complex than this is overly complicated for them.”

Mary: “I thought they’re filthy rich and can hire anyone?”

Teacher: “Mary, they don’t give a damn about the end users. I was about to record a screencast and wanted to be able to open a tab with a blank page so the viewers wouldn’t see all my recently visited sites. Is this too much to ask of Chrome version 18.0?”

Mary: “No, teacher. It should be really easy – just go to Preferences and select some option to open a new tab with a blank page.”

Teacher: “There is no such option in Chrome. After spending 10 minutes searching for a solution I found one! You have to install and Add On called Blank New Tab.”

Mary: “Now I understand why my grandma doesn’t want to replace Internet Explorer with any other fancy shmancy browser. When I’ll grow up, I’ll become a usability expert and will help Google to create applications that will put the end users before the geeks.”

Teacher: “Mary, do you happen to have a link to the IE download handy?”