Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Company

  • In today’s IT Software Industry, we delve into the true status of the failing Software Outsourcing Industry in India. We will explore the issues, causes, and examine the past and future prospects of this industry.

    Background

    I recall being in my elementary school when everyone proudly described themselves as either US Return or Foreign Return. They took immense pride in the fact that they had achieved a status that their ancestors had never even qualified for, spanning over five generations. Typically, these men would return to India to marry a girl from their religion and caste. The bride’s parents would happily marry their daughter to a US Return individual, who was expected to be an ultra-rich, highly accomplished, and well-off person.

    Today

    However, something changed once I began attending college in the early 2000s.

    As of today, 2024, the software industry is in a state of decline. There are no jobs, lower salaries, bankruptcy, and court cases of fraud between business partners and investors.

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  • Monetisation Strategy A Business Lesson from Cinema Theatres and Online Ticket Booking Portals.

    Back Story:

    The year was 2001/2/3, and there was a new movie experience on the block. And there was new mall culture introduced in Mumbai for my age individuals.

    Early Success:

    Somehow I got to know about R-Adlabs Playes movies for INR 50.0 only.

    Now every day I find myself watching at least one movie, or sometimes three in a row.

    At that time, classmates would find themselves bumping into each other as theatres went house full.

    First Evil Thought of Money Making:

    After say half a year, cinema hall increased price to INR 250.0, and suddenly all shows were abandoned and empty with no people, or 4 or 5 people per show. Sometimes they have to cancel the shows.

    Then brought down price to INR 150.0, then people started visiting cinema halls again but lost all houseful boards that existed at start with a 50 rupee price tag.

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  • Why I began recording my personal encounters with Brahman Hatred/Abuse, Gazwa-E-Hind, and Love Jihad activities based on my observations and memories.

    Background

    Experience that I wrote in my earlier blof post about GEP HR Head, Muthu, Kadam, Roy, and Vishwakarma as that was something that I avoided for almost a decade.

    But then I realized when one day I went for an interview with a company called Hexaware in MBP, Mahape, Navi Mumbai. There was a Bengali individual who supposed to be head of Design in Hexaware who said he knew Roy as an industry disruptor with whom he worked before. I told that Bangali individual that if he has given you any information about my issue with the GEP company and why I left, then let me know. Then I told him to call Roy immediately then we can discuss the issue within the time limit of the interview.

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  • What Special Legal Rights That Muslim Exercise in India That allows them to call any fellow Kafir A ‘Shaitan’. My first-hand experience with Mongini’s Muslim Employee.

    Background

    There has been a Monginis cake shop in my area for 15+ years.

    I used to eat chocolate cakes in the same shop.

    However, after a few interactions, I started experiencing irregularities, hindrances or arrogance by the shopkeeper when you asked for the order. Sometimes, an older person who is supposed to be a shop owner will insult you or talk rashly in English to sound excellent and non-offensive on the part of the shopkeeper.

    After a few interactions in the first 5/6 years, I never went back to shopping again to eat cakes.

    So here I am documenting my first-hand experiences with Monginis Cake Shop in my area.

    First Experience:

    So it was the same shopkeeper I mentioned above when I went to the same shop in the early years there was a single cake remaining in one rack which was four weeks old and past the date of expiry written on its label.

    So, by choice, I told him to give me a different cake to eat, which was very fresh as per the date mentioned on its label.

    But in difference or kind hate about maybe Marathi speaking locals or perhaps ignorance of health issues will that person have or sake selling cakes without thinking about society health he didn’t bother to give a cake that I chose which was same day delivered. Still, he offered me a cake that was four weeks old. So I told him I ordered a different cake, and you gave me a rotten one, which is four weeks old. He said it doesn’t matter, eat it. Nothing will happen to you.

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  • GEP Company Review – My experience with Brahmin Hatred, Insult, Frustration, and Abuse because of untrustworthy Managers and irresponsible Human Resource Managers

    Background:

    I joined GEP (Global eProcure) company as a UI Designer in 2015.

    The company was overstaffed or overcrowded as they planned to buy two more floors in the same building. But it used to be seen as a time profitability of the company.

    In a few weeks, I realised the company app we designed and developed was unstable and lousy by performance vice. And we were losing customers every day. In the words of the company’s current clients, they can’t even interact as the development team used multiple external frameworks on every page rather than inline coding it by themselves. It seems an analytical page that the company app’s essential feature took more than fifteen minutes to load, which should be not more than five seconds or less.

    There were multiple Usability issues, such as an add user form with hundreds of input fields, no autocomplete, no progress bar, and no step-by-step wizard-type interface so that the user can take a break or complete tasks later. With this, a minute inactivity threshold was added by developers, which caused users to be unable to use the app. This company hired its staff to feed data rather than fix the product, as its clients can’t use it.

    So it was messy. On the outside, the company was on a hiring spree with a shiny face outside. But inside, all was screwed up. And things were going downstream towards hell.

    During this period, suddenly, we as a designing team got to know from our current manager, Mr Muthu, that a new UXD Manager will lead us from the next minute, and HR has arranged for a meeting with the team in the next three minutes.

    We learned the new Manager was Mr. Roy. Our old demoted Manager was shaken inside.

    My interaction with my old manager was abusive. He used to spit curses at every member with statements like design should be wow, मजा नही आ राहा है, i.e., In a word, it should look like interfaces designed by Apple or Microsoft UXD Team. The new manager even outsourced design to Microsoft’s Consultant for around fifty lakhs. But the result was a failure, with the money going for no good.

    The Real Story:

    In this ugly environment. I was having lunch with my team one fine day. A man almost my age was sitting before me named Mr Kadam. He suddenly started abusing my Brahmin Cast with statements I will list below in numbers.

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  • Betting your company on Metaverse AR/VR Craze

    First Story that I want to share today is from my experience

    In 2009 I worked as an Animator and E-Learning Courseware Creator and Designer. And I was planning to switch the design domain to HCI/UX, i.e. Human-Computer Interaction/User Experience Design.

    And software like Apple Shake and Adobe After Effects was standard competitive tool used in both domains.

    I was using an iMac at that time. Adobe After Effects was bundled in Creative Suite, costing around INR 45,000/- in India. Apple Shake was way cheaper as it was a standalone offering from Apple.

    It was the day of 30th July 2009 that I was going to start to learn the Apple Shake as Apple offered all tutorials on their website for free. And it was the same day that Apple discontinued Apple Shake. When I woke early to learn, I saw the news on their portal. I was devastated by the news. But I was relieved as I saved my time as if I started learning it two months ago, and then they discontinued it, which was a waste of time and energy. The software skill you acquired doesn’t exist in the world, or there is no demand for your talent in your industry, is a total waste of time.

    There is another story that I can share with you today.

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  • Human Factors International (HFI) UX/UxD/HCI Certification Reality

    By graduate degree, I am a BFA Applied Art graduate. I know the UX field has existed in India and World longer than I know, but I learned of it at my first job around 2007. I am a multidisciplinary designer.

    I opted to do User Experience Design/User Interaction Design/Human-Computer Interaction Design certification around 2016. I have been going through HFI’s website since the year 2012.

    HFI has three main certifications Certified Usability Analyst (CUA), Certified Certified
    Certified User Experience Analyst (CXA), Certified Digital Persuasion Analyst (CDPA).

    My observation was HFI was increasing the cost of Certification every year by 15% to 20%.

    When I first visited their website, the cost was INR 75,000/-, But when I registered for the CUA course, it was INR 1,08,000/- Immediately the following year, they increased rice to almost INR 1,20,000/-.

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  • Web/Mobile App Monetisation & Revenue Generation Strategies

    All business survives on net profit.

    In accounting terms, here is how you calculate Net Profit. i.e. (Total Business Revenue) – (Total Business Expenditure) = Net Profit

    In the business world, there are two types of industries Service and Product.

    So if you are in the service industry, you survive on a paycheck by paycheck or hourly charges to the client. You have to work every hour of every day to make ends meet.

    But if you are a product company, you create a product based on your market and user research. You find consumer problems/requirements/gaps in the market and then try to solve them by creating your product in that category. So building a product is based on solving problems that your users are having.

    In my case, I was a designer by profession. I graduated with a BFA (Bachelor of Applied Arts) in Advertising. After my first two jobs, I tried freelancing in the web, UX, print, branding and animation film industries. I was the lone proprietor of my business. I was doing everything talking to clients, executing a project, delivering it and then waiting for the final payment to be released. It was too much for me at that time.

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  • My Experience Using Apple Watch for 5 Years and Apple’s Gamification Strategies

    In 2019, I bought myself an Apple iPhone 11 Pro 256GB and Apple Watch 5.

    I have used an Apple iPhone 5s with 16GB since 2016. But I was dissatisfied with the storage that it allowed me to use. Out of 16GB, 10GB was the operating system, 2GB was for Apps that were able to fit it, 2GB was for Photos that I captured, then I had to delete to make space for the next ones, and 2GB was for other apps’ data.

    It was total dissatisfaction with the Apple iPhone 5s.

    In the year 2016, I had sciatica. So I used to walk for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening or night. So I just walked 850 kilometres in a month to eliminate sciatica pain. I used to maintain my diary of walking approx kilometre completed in a day/week/month/year. But I was out of sync with my blood pressure, heart rate, calories burned etc.

    When Apple iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch 5 got released impressed with features like ECG, Fitness app, and Health app capabilities. And I choose 256 GB storage for my iPhone as that’s what I require to sustain all photographs, music, videos and other data for a year or two without deleting it.

    I used Apple Watch daily for three years to track my outdoor walking exercises, ECG, Heart Rate Monitoring, Calory burning, Exercise hours tracking, Standup Hours tracking, receiving notifications, receiving phone calls on my watch, reading SMS/Messages on my watch itself etc.

    I was thrilled.

    But one day, I broke my Apple Watch’s Crown or Wheel. I was devastated. I contacted Apple Service Centre. They said Apple Watch is unrepairable. And you are out of warranty too.

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  • Males and Females in Human Resource (HR) Recruitment in the Era of Feminism / Illusion of Patriarchy or Illusion of Brahmanical Patriarchy in Brahman Hatread Society

    With the invention of Feminism. The female audience was introduced to the term called Patriarchy and, for Hindu haters Brahmanical Patriarchy. Feminism tells young female audiences to blame Male dominant society for their natural human body periods of pain. They somehow ask why boys should not suffer the same and why just girls or women.

    Even with the disclosure of Twitter Files by Elon Musk. Vijaya Gadde from Twitter also got sued in court for her bias Twitter’s social media administration or moderation. (Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney who served as general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter. – Wikipedia) I remember her saying, “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy”, out of nowhere. Why are American companies’ social media heads blaming or shaming Brahmins from India / Bharat / Hindusthan for no harm they did?

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