Laugh or cry -- it's your choice -- at the failure to manage usability.  But be indifferent at your peril.

Over the years we have seen too many projects that have tried to do something about usability, and failed. 

How did it happen?  Superficially there seem to be three main reasons:

• the usability initiative started too late

• usability activities were badly chosen 

• usability work was badly executed

But what lies behind these?  

Often the biggest culprit is a failure of management caused by a clash of styles.  

Maybe some of the key decision-makers -- perhaps even you -- have a high level of level of usability resistance...