Understanding the Audience

Who will visit the sites you build? What are their expectations? What kind of technology will they use to view you site? What will bring them back to see it again?

Answers to these questions will effect every decision you make about the development of a site, from the way navigation is labeled to how much multimedia is tolerable.

A site development team will go to great lengths to get answers they need to help define their site, including surveying focus groups, asking for online feedback of an existing site, paper surveys, and offering premiums/giveaways for the users’ time and effort.

Compare these types of audiences with the types of sites listed below. Do you see any similarities? Ilise Benun, author of Designing Web sites for Every Audience, lists 6 types:

  • Learners
  • Shoppers
  • Connection Seekers
  • Transactors
  • Business Browsers
  • Fun Seekers

Take a look at Reece, Rogers, and Sharp’s online tools for building a list of questions you may need to address for your project:

Interactive Heuristic Evaluation Toolkit
Reece, Rogers, and Sharp. Interaction Design web site.

For this course, you will make educated guesses about your audience (unless you have the time to really find out about your audience) and listen to feedback from your small groups to assess whether you site(s) meet your defined audiences’ needs.

Joined another campground org

I just joined FMCA, in addition to Good Sam Club, Choice Camping, which gives me Passport America, Enjoy America and Resort Parks Int’l. I bought a commercial membership as well, which allows me to advertise on their site.

Evicted!

Well, it’s happened. My cheap and easy lifestyle comes to an end next week; I’ve been evicted! The grumpy lady next door has called the city/cops to make sure I get moved. Apparently Cindy and I got wrong info from the police about lodging in an RV in a driveway. It’s not allowed and now we have the ordinance to prove it. They “inspected” the situation today and left me a citation. I have to move the RV to an acceptable lodging location by Wednesday.

It was too good to last, I guess.

What really NICE thing could I do for the neighbor to help her realize what a MEAN thing she’s done for us?

Should I let her karma takes its course or should I help it along?

New wheels

We’re 4 to 5 months away from leaving the car behind and hightailing it out of Oregon. Our new tandem bike is a joy to ride and I am confident it’ll be a sound replacement for the car.

First trip to the beach

As a new motorhome owner, the RV dealer gave me a free weekend at Thousand Trails in Pacific City. The location is just beautiful; a natural setting, complete with bunnies (though guests are encouraged to feed them; guess they aren’t wild anymore). The staff and guests were very friendly. I am considering a membership, though I have this feeling they like their guests to be all white meat. In all the ads, magazines, and posters I saw while there, only one had African Americans represented and I didn’t see any Asians represented. Besides the cost, this may keep me from signing up.

2 weeks into full-timing

We are settled in now, and out of the house. It took 14 days to move! Yuck. I’ll never stay somewhere 10 yrs again!

A friend has let me know about insta-hot alternatives to water heaters, so we can shower. In the mean time, we’ll pretend by washing with disposable wipes and washing our hair in the neighbor’s sink.

I have yet to take some pictures. Guess the rain has stopped me there, and the exhaustion of moving. Perhaps this weekend I’ll have a chance, before Maya’s birthday party.

We take our first real trip to Pacific City next weekend. It’ll be a breeze; now that I have the hang of driving, parking, backing up, leveling, and turning on the systems. What I need before we go is the iPod connection to the house speakers.

I’m hoping the next weekend to buy a recumbant tandem bike to use for alternative transpertation. I’ll be cheaper and easier than towing the car.

Eventful week

We are almost at the end of 14 days of Hell. Moving from a 4-bedroom 2-bath house into a 31 foot motorhome is a challenge.

We’ve lived through 3 days of no heat, no stove, and incessent rain. The heat problem was indeed an empty propane tank, not the fuse. I just neglected to turn the gas on when I returned from filling it. Never assume the service dude has left it on!

Maya tried the shower tonight; too bad we ran out of water midway! At least now I understand the Command Center lights; E means empty! The hot seems to be intermittent (sp?). Bummer.

At the garage sale, I gave away as much as possible, and sent many large items to the ARC for consignment. They pick up, so that saved me a headache. I expect to have all the junk out of the house tomorrow afternoon, however. And on Sunday, all the garbage will be picked up.

Since I can’t officially close until Monday or Tuesday due to World Savings horrible policy of making me wait 10 days to get a payoff letter, I didn’t get to close on Wednesday as planned.

Sunday will be a day of rest, except for the client site I need to finish, and making Maya’s birthday invites.

First night in new home

Maya and I slept well in our new home (filled with stuff) and are trying to enjoy packing up the last bit of stuff, which seems to be the hardest, with everything else already taking up space.

The more I think I’m close to being done packing the sooner I see another room with junk laying on the floor that must be either kept, stored, boxed for giveaway, or thrown away. I was getting more and more depressed until I realized the problem was I had no where to put it–BOXES are needed. So we’re taking a break to go get lots of boxes. That should speed things up.

Packing up

We brought the RV home on Sunday and have been packing up. The house is slowly coming apart and looking baren.

I’m storing many books, baby clothes, memorabilia, and art at Philomath Self Storage in a 5×4 unit, which may not be enough. Do I really need 3 large boxes of books? Will I need the heated unit?

I’ve sold a few pieces of furniture and will probably sell the rest at our garage sale Saturday. The garage is filling up with stuff to sell. I have about 200 CDs, some of which I sold to Happy Trails. What do I do with the rest if they don’t sell? Ugh!

All the important stuff is fitting nicely into the RV; my art cart, canvases, clothes, books, and food!

I bought the RV!

Jayco Grawhawk 31SS
Yesterday, I put 10% down on a 31SS Class C Jayco Grayhawk! It’s fun to drive, roomy, pretty on the inside, and has all the amenities I need.

On Monday, I’ll hear how the credit report looks and which lender will take me at which interest rate.

When the home sale is final, I’ll refinance the RV at a lower interest rate and put much more down to keep the monthly payments manageable.

We’ll sign papers Friday and pick it up the next Friday or Saturday (March 19), at the beginning of Spring Break. That gives us the week to pack and play before Spring Term starts. We’ll move over to Cindy’s by March 31.

Follow your dreams.

Time to purchase!

Now that the house has sold, I will be doing my final RV shopping this weekend. I have rig picked out.

Initial analysis of financing a dream to live the full-time RV lifestyle

Our 31 foot Jayco Grayhawk motorhome
Our 31 foot Jayco Grayhawk motorhome.

I have found it hard over the years to really take a vacation, get enough sleep, or take a complete break from working 11 hrs per day. The jobs I’ve held have been exciting, invigorating, exhausting, and over time, not as rewarding financially as they should have been. After 20 years in the workforce, I am burned out, gray, flabby, bitchy, and itching to do something different.

Pam and Maya Van Londen driving the Loneliest Road in 2005.
Pam and Maya Van Londen driving the Loneliest Road in 2005.

So I’m going to travel full time and work part time. Yikes! How can I do that? I’m in debt, have no savings, and need a job that lets me work from the road. Plus, I’d rather be painting than working in a cold, dark office all day.

Voila! I’ll paint and teach online. I can always continue to build web sites for clients as well. This can be done.

Two sets of friends and I would discuss this idea of traveling full time but it seemed so daunting to get from here (day job, kids, car, mortgage) to there (anytime/anywhere job, motorhome, gas money, kids). One way I overcome a daunting future is to dream. So I visualized every aspect of living on the road…what would the motorhome have to look like? What tools would I need? Where would I park? Would I feel safe? Could I take the dog? Could I homeschool my daughter?

Personal Finances

Whether I’m dreaming or not, I like to get out the computer to help me. The following 3 screenshots are taken from Quicken’s customizable budgeting reports. Because I have used Quicken to track all home and business expenses for the past 7 years, it was able to automatically set up the budget for me! Quicken showed me my monthy and annual expenses and income based on past years.

Before I put the house on the market, I reviewed my budget from 2003 and projected what it would cost to live in an RV 1) while still in Corvallis and then live in an RV 2) while traveling for a year. The screen shots below are examples of these budgets.

Cost to stay in Corvallis but living in the RV. Cost to live on the road in an RV.

The budget shows me that I’m trying to live outside my means! But, the idea about working part time (not 11 hours per day like I have been), traveling, having and accumulating less, and having FUN will keep me alive longer, which, day to day, should cost me less per month. We’ll see.

Quicken allowed me to customize my columns and rows to generate a report that fit my mindset. I was able to hide/show detail of expenses depending on my needs for a report.

Budget Projections and Variations

The next thing I did was to project what it would take to get rid of the debt; pay a year’s worth of health, life, and auto insurance; and purchase the motorhome. For this task I switched to an AppleWorks Spreadsheet file.

The three columns below use a few common calculations to show what I have available to spend on the motorhome and other expenses if I sell the house for $190k or $180k. If I changed the downpayment amount then referenced cells will automatically adjust themselves. If I add more income then I can put more down on the RV or if I sell the house for less, I can see how much more income I need to maintain the budget. The columns adjust themselves.

If I purchase a used or lower-priced rig, and teach distance classes, paint murals, and continue developing web sites for clients, I should be able to stay on the road for a year (or more).
House purchase yields enough to purchase the RV. Other income each month helps pay expenses.

Who else is living this dream?

Thousands across the country are quitting jobs, selling homes, and living full-time in motorhomes and trailers. Some are what might be considered trailer-trash, but many are retired or semi-retired professionals who want to see the world and live where it’s warm. Many work while on the road.

WorkCamper magazine lists many jobs for fulltimers (as we’re called).
Workers On Wheels covers many topics for
And Full Time RVer tells us how to save time and money while on the road.

Motorhome Magazine published a great article about the cost of fulltime RVing in 1999. I haven’t seen another one since, it’s time to update the figures; I believe costs have doubled.

Barriers?

When I was asked to teach a distance course, I knew I was on my way to living my dream. And not one of my friends or family has tried to persuade me to continue life as is. The only barriers are time, organization, and money.

I project the process to go from fulltime worker to fulltime RVer will be about 9 months. I must stay focused on preparing the house for sale. I must continue to seek out other online teaching opportunities and start painting more.