"Every little deal is a big deal."
Fishes Interview #11 with Kelly, creator and master of http://www.keepfitwithkelly.co.uk/ - Aerobic dance classes for men and women, in Dorset and Hampshire, England. Published 02/18/07
about the father's business - Fishes Interviews
Candid interviews with web site builders & designers "A series of interviews with online shop owners, artists, musicians and business owners, all are celebrities in my book. Level of web design, W3C Validation or CSS and HTML expertise is not as important as their hopes, dreams, struggles and accomplishments. "
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Welcome to the Fishes Candid Interviews | design by atfb, web design and custom graphics, photograph restoration, photograph enhancement and logo creation.
1. QUESTION: Kelly I hope by now you are familiar with the "big fishes" image and it's history. If you could and would identify yourself with a fish in the image, then tell us why you did so.
Answer: Probably the one with the white stick as I'm never really sure of what I'm doing but just stumble along hoping for the best!
2. QUESTION: Consider this your stage and introduce yourself. Who is Kelly?
Answer: That's a toughie! Who am I? I'm an engineer, a doctor, a fitness instructor, a webmaster, TG committee member, a housekeeper, dog owner.......and so it goes on. But let me expand on that. By education I am an engineer and have a doctorate in Materials Engineering.
I work full time as a Stress Engineer for an aerospace company specialising in air to air refuelling equipment. My job is to ensure our products will not break! My main hobby, aerobics, has turned into my part time business and I teach 2 classes a week in community venues. My other hobby, webbing, is a result of the first, and I maintain not only my own site, but a site for our local townswomen's guild. 
I also have a house, partner, dog,
and tank of tropical fish to look after! In my spare time, or on those days with more than 24 hours in them, I like to relax with a book, my favourite genre being fantasy and my favourite author, Terry Pratchett.
3. QUESTION: Where are you located? You don't have to provide me with details, just a overview, like country. If you could re locate to any place on earth, would you? How long do suppose you could stay?
Answer: I currently live in Dorset, England. If I could, I would relocate to somewhere where the temperature remains between about 20 C and 25 C all year and I would never leave! Why? I suffer with Raynauds, which means I suffer in extremes of temperatures.
4. QUESTION: When and why did you first decide to build a website? How intimidated were you by the thought? I know you've made some major changes in the past year regarding your site and your business. Are you well satified with your efforts? Do you have plans for additional changes?
Answer: When I first started to teach aerobics, I had limited funds for advertising, and as I had free webspace from my ISP I thought it would be a cheap way of advertising. I started out knowing absolutely nothing about building a webpage. My ISP had its own 'web builder' which I thought I would use. I quickly realised that this was too restrictive and wouldn't allow me to layout my pages as I wanted. I then searched the net for 'teach yourself html' sites and created my first pages. I then joined statcounter and started to find out lots of other tricks, most of which I couldn't use! One that I did start to delve into was CSS. When I made changes to my business I decided to make things easier for myself, and bought a domain and 'real' hosting. The door to SSI was then opened to me. I therefore needed another challenge so set out to create a design that couldn't be done with tables. Am I satisfied? Yes and no. I'm pleased with the visuals of my site, but there is still a lot I could learn and use from a coding point of view.
5. QUESTION: How, did you settle on your domain name (s)?
Answer: My original domain name was the one provided by my ISP and I had no choice. The new one, well its the name of my business and was chosen democratically by my students!
6. QUESTION: I love your present site design! I'm always interested in other designers processes. How did you develop the vision for your site? Might I say that the colors and design elements are bold, inspired and perfect for your site content. How long did it take you from inception to completion?
Answer: Well, Sharron, you had some input here! The logo, which you and JWJ designed, gave me the idea of the arc for the main navigation. The colours, well they are my colours. I just love purple! The visual design probably only took about an hour. I initially drew it in PSP, then once I was happy started to work out the CSS. This was the first time I attempted to use absolute positioning and it took quite a few goes to get it right! But I think it was worth the effort.
7. QUESTION: Do you feel your site is finished or do you still have grander goals? Elaboration is expected.
Answer: Finished? Is anything ever finished? Visually, it will probably not change much. One thing I would like to add (if I can get my students to agree) is to add a short video clip of a class. I believe if people could see what I do they might be more tempted to try. I'd also like to replace that image of me. My aim is to have a different image on each page. I just need someone to take the pictures!
8. QUESTION: What would you say was the most difficult part of building your site (s)? What would you say were the easiest parts?
Answer: For the current site? The hardest part was definitely getting the CSS right for my navigation. The easiest? Designing the logo!!!
9. QUESTION: Your site is Valid*XHTML (DOCTYPE*html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1*strict.dtd) to be precise. Have you found that it has helped your SE rankings? And why did you decide to utilize that doc type? Was it as hard as some imagine it to be, you know validate the code in this format over say html transitional or any other?
Answer: I chose xhtml strict just because I wanted the challenge. I didn't find it too difficult, but then it is a fairly simple site. I'm not sure if it has helped my SE rankings. Gargoyle seems to be all over the place at the moment, I'm either at No 1 or nowhere when searching for my business name! I do seem to have a good listing with MSN though.
10. QUESTION: How much attention do you feel others should pay attention to web standards and accessibility issues?
Answer: In my job, I have to work to standards. I feel they are there for a reason. However, in the case of web standards, before webmasters should be expected to adhere to them, I think all the different browsers should! Then again, if all webmasters did adhere to them, maybe we could force the browsers to adopt them. As for accessibility, although I believe we shouldn't discriminate, I think common sense is also require. In short, it depends on the purpose of the site.
11. QUESTION: May I ask then what was the "dumbest" question you've ever asked concerning website design or implementation? Feel free to elaborate if you need to.
Answer: Oh that's easy. When I first dabbled with CSS I asked the statcounter forum why one of my pages wasn't formatting the same way as all the other pages. I then realised I hadn't uploaded the new page and it was my old table based page being shown!
12. QUESTION: I've noticed you have a forum on your site. Do you find that it works as you intended and how would you categorize it's importance to the website?
Answer: The main reason for my forum was for my students to post testimonials. The plan had been to have links from the main site to the 'testimonials' category of the forum. As only one student has registered, I guess the answer is no! I also thought it would give visitors a reason to come back to my site. So far most of the posts are spam. However, it is still early days, the site is barely six months old.
13. QUESTION: Ms. Kelly, what moment as it relates to your web site (s) surprised you the most? And if you can, what was the most disastrous moment?
Answer: When I got my navigation arc to work. Not sure about disastrous.
14. QUESTION: How would you say your site has impacted your new business? If there were one thing you'd love to implement on your site, what would it be?
Answer: Honestly? It hasn't. I get, on average, about 25 pageloads per day, but so far not a single new student. However, it is still cheaper than advertising in newspapers! When I see some of the search terms used to find my site, it gives me hope. Who knows, one day it might just generate that new student. What would I like to implement on my site? Something to bring that new student to class!
15. QUESTION: How do you balance your web building time and your real life? Do you feel you balance it well?
Answer: Nothing in my life is balanced! My web building time comes in spurts. If I have an idea, I will spend as much time as I possibly can on it. Once completed, I might do nothing for weeks!
16. QUESTION: Kelly what are your dreams, goals and aspirations? They don't have to relate to your website.
Answer: Now this might surprise everyone. I have one dream. To join the AAIB (aircraft accident investigation bureau).
17. QUESTION: If you had one bit of advice or a tidbit of knowledge to impart, what would it be?
Answer: Don't be afraid of failing. I originally wanted to be a doctor (medical). I failed my second year exams and had to change direction. Not wanting to waste what I had learned, I turned to medical engineering. Halfway through my course, I decided I preferred the more traditional engineering subjects and switched. Do I have any regrets? No. I love my present job. The knowledge I gained at medical school also helped me in my fitness instructor training as there were units in anatomy, physiology and first aid.
18. QUESTION: If you could post two links to websites, that you consider to be outstanding sites what would they be? They don't have to be outstanding due to validation, css or web standards just outstanding in that they are interesting, helpful and or contribute to the over all betterment of the web wide world.
Answer: I would have to say statcounter for checking traffic to my site and its forum full of wonderful and helpful people, and w3schools.com as it was a major source of reference when building my sites.
19. QUESTION: I've asked others and would like to ask you as well, do you imagine that everyone is born with natural born talent? What is yours?
Answer: I'm not sure I would say natural talent. I think aptitude would be a better description. I believe we can all train ourselves to do anything, but we each have a natural aptitude for certain things. Mine is for maths.
20. QUESTION: Are there any questions you would have liked me to ask but I didn't? If so please do elaborate.
Answer: Oh gosh! No I don't think so.
21. QUESTION: I know I've taken an inordinate amount of time getting these interview questions to you. Now that you've had the opportunity to read and answer them, do you imagine you'd do it again? lol
Answer: Yes! I'd do anything for a giggle!
Kelly of Westmoors, Thank you for participating! Below is your IBF button, feel free to use as your claim to Fishes Fame. Or not.........lol 
