Not much surprises me anymore. After more than a decade spent providing boutique services, followed by the last 6 or so years strictly in software, I’ve really earned the increase in grey hairs on my face and head. However, one thing I continue to find absolutely baffling is the way companies and designers often attempt to design their software from the bottom-up, screen-by-agonizing-screen. That approach is categorically wrong. Any design or redesign must start from the systemic level, from the top-down.

What does that mean? Consider an application that most of us are familiar with, iTunes. If Apple came to me and asked me to simply redesign the home page for Videos inside of iTunes, without regard for the rest of the product, they would be setting up me—and the redesign effort itself—for failure. The Videos home page is one screen amidst a veritable tsunami of information. Anything we do to that page will impact the user experience of the entire product. To redesign that screen, large and important as it may be, in isolation is an inherent fail. By changing it without changing the many pages around and relying on it, we would simply be buggering up the overall user interface, no matter how much better that spot redesign might be.

This week, embattled R&B artist Chris Brown closed his Twitter account after a profanity-laced tirade. This makes Brown just the latest public figure to have an embarrassing meltdown and then abashedly terminate their account on the social networking giant.

At the same time, just last week a university student interviewed me to discuss trends in the relationship between social networking and how people behave. Her concern and focus was on the trend of drunk or high college students using texting and Twitter to lash out against boyfriends, ex’es, teachers and other people who have done them wrong. As I told her, this sort of behaviour has been happening since long before modern communication technology existed. The difference is, shouting “I hate Ellen!” from the balcony of your fraternity house is ephemeral and easily forgotten or denied, while texting or Tweeting it becomes an immediate artifact and only strengthens Ellen’s ability to point you out as the jerk you “really are”. One can only guess how many social networking accounts have been closed in the aftermath of a substance-induced tantrum.