Posted on by Steve Faulkner in Standards
Lola Odelola is a force to be reckoned with. Which is why TetraLogical are delighted to sponsor her work on the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG). They are currently involved with a number of important efforts involving Web Standards and accessibility. Here at TetraLogical we follow with interest and wholly support their work.
My first degree was in Creative Writing and English Literature. At the time I was a poet and very focussed on my writing. One of my lecturers published my final project, Lost and Found, and I got paid £0.00 for it. I thought then it may be best to find something more lucrative. Since I was a writer, I wanted to build a website to showcase all my writing in one place, however I couldn't afford to pay anyone to build it for me, so I decided to learn HTML. I then discovered Ruby where I really fell in love with coding.
I did a Ruby bootcamp and then dove into the tech industry. I've worked in various areas such as web development, software engineering, tech support, web advocacy and more. In that time I also ran a non-profit, blackgirl.tech, with the aim of getting more black girls, women, and non-binary people into coding.
I got into standards through my job at Samsung Internet where I was responsible for advising the Samsung Internet Engineering team on which privacy standards were on the horizon and which standards the team be looking to adopt into the Samsung Internet browser. I went on to lead the Web Platform Program at Bocoup which is where I learnt about accessibility standards and resources (as well as a bunch of other stuff) through the ARIA-AT program.
I'm still an artist, although not writing as much anymore, and I'm always trying to find ways to bring the two together; I document what I do on https://lolaslab.co.
Initially I didn't think I was in the stage in my career to run, so I didn't actually consider it, however, a couple of members of the W3C TAG (Technical Architecture Group) reached out to me separately asking if I'd consider it. I enjoy working in standards, this is a part of my job where I genuinely feel like I'm making positive, meaningful contributions and working on TAG is an opportunity to increase the impact I make in the community. I care first and foremost about web users, and I wanted the opportunity to continue to develop and contribute to the work that actively prioritises them with documents like Societal Impact Questionnaire, PDF, the Ethical Web Principles, and more.
I recently became the co-editor of the Societal Impact Questionnaire Working Group with my colleagues Sarven and Tristan, so that's a priority for me. I want to help the W3C think about ways we can be more considerate about the social implications of the technology we create.
I'm also interested in developer education and demystifying the standards process, so I've started a podcast called What the Spec?! where I unpack web standards and browsers with the people who create them.
I've started contributing Web Platform Tests in the accessibility area, as I think this is a really good way to gain a deeper understanding in how specs are implemented in browsers. I also think it'll make me better at reviewing specifications.
My biggest priority is conducting design reviews of incoming specifications. TAG reviews spec proposals as part of our work and most recently I've been paying close attention to privacy-focussed specifications, particularly those which aim to replace a function of third-party cookies, and specifications which may have some kind of impact on accessibility.
Yes. I think it gives me a human-centred perspective, which often balances out technical abstraction with real-world impact. I approach standards work thinking about how it affects people's lives, not just code or systems.
Before I began to learn how to code after my first degree, I didn't know being a software engineer or web developer was an option for me. We didn't do coding in my ICT classes in secondary school. I was also often times the only black person or black woman in many of the technical rooms I was in. I wanted black girls to know that if they want to, they can use code to build things online, and I wanted to to give them the skills to do that. Initially it wasn't about jobs or a career in tech, it was more about making digital creations.
The most rewarding thing was the internship program I ran in the last year of blackgirl.tech. We were able to get two women from our community onto a paid 3 month training program which then led to an 18 month internship program with the agency 8th Light. Originally the training was unpaid with only one place, but it was important to me that if folks were going to be in full time training, they have a way to sustain themselves, even if the training is free. Once 8th Light saw how many applicants there were, they decided to take on two people.
The most challenging part was the racism and misogyny in the industry. When you're running a program for marginalised people, those outside the marginalised group think that by helping you, they're doing you a favour. Or they want to use you to sanitise their image in some way.
I think the biggest ones are financial backing and being unaware that web standards and the W3C exists. When I speak to folks from under-represented backgrounds about the work I do in standards, many of them don't realise that the W3C produces more than WCAG. So I think there's an outreach/marketing thing there. But also, of the those who do know about the W3C, they can't afford to join.
In 2021 I was co-chair of the developer council and one of our aims was to reach out to folks from underrepresented backgrounds to participate in web standards. I was working with a task force, all folks from various parts of the web however, only myself and the other co-chair, Boaz Sender were funded, which meant the others couldn't participate as much as they would have liked. Eventually we had to stop the work (for a few reasons also) because it wasn't sustainable.
At Bocoup, I was the Web Platform Program Lead and one of the projects I was looking after was AT-Driver, a specification which details a protocol to allow remote testing of screen-readers.
When I joined the AT-Driver was still being developed in the ARIA Community Group and wasn't on the standards track, and while there was some buy-in from some assistive tech vendors, there were others who were concerned about various security issues. I essentially had to do some campaigning for the project, as well as make decisions about how to prioritise incoming issues. I led the chartering of the project in the Browser Tools and Testing Working Group, which is the first step to getting the spec on the standards track. This means that BTT commits to producing the specification and giving time to the project.
AT-Driver is currently being used in the ARIA-AT project to run tests for the patterns listed in the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide. AT-Driver is heavily influenced by WebDriver BiDi so it's a very low level technology, the idea is that others will build on top of it, to create testing libraries for screen-readers that can remotely access the screen-reader in a test environment. Mike Pennisi is the current editor and lead engineer on the project, and Meta (specifically Matt King) is also providing direction and funding for the project.
For more information about TetraLogical's W3C activities, read Our Impact
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