Performance Analysis Elegance

medianotes screen

MediaNotes (formerly known as The Performance Analyst or PAT) is the original concept of Brigham Young University law professors Larry Farmer and Gerald Williams, and dance professor Raymond Robinson. The project was begun with the hope of providing better and more efficient feedback to students in interviewing, counseling, negotiation and dance courses.

The project was started at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in 2004 as joint development effort between the J. Reuben Clark Law School, the College of Health and Human Performance and Center for Instruction Design. After prototyping the software, the BYU developers approached Greg and Trevor DeVore of Blue Mango Learning Systems in January 2006 to setup a collaborative development project to prepare a stable version ready for distribution in educational and commercial settings.

After an initial meeting it was clear that a productive partnership could be formed. A few weeks later Blue Mango Learning Systems began developing The Performance Analyst. As Larry, Gerry, Trevor and Greg delved into the workflow issues involved in tagging and analyzing performances the project quickly took many unexpected design turns. Though this set the schedule back a bit the rapid iteration process resulted in a very robust tool.

A key to this iterative process was the use of the software in classes taught by Larry and Gerry. Their constant feedback helped Blue Mango make necessary adjustments early on that resulted in significant efficiencies in the reviewing process.