Let’s talk about something that usually gets relegated to the “nice to have” pile in most development shops: accessibility. And I’m not talking about that awkward moment when someone mentions WCAG compliance and everyone suddenly finds their shoes very interesting. I’m talking about something more fundamental—should our programming languages themselves be the ones policing accessibility standards? Here’s my hot take: we’ve been approaching this problem backwards. We’ve created mountains of guidelines, compliance frameworks, and regulatory requirements, yet we still treat accessibility like it’s a feature you bolt on at the end, right before launch, when someone remembers “oh yeah, screen readers exist.” Meanwhile, our programming languages? They’re blissfully neutral on the matter. They don’t care if your code is accessible or not. They’ll happily compile your inaccessible mess.

The Current Accessibility Landscape: A Brief Reality Check

Before we dive deeper, let’s establish what we’re actually dealing with. The web accessibility standards have evolved significantly over the past decade. WCAG 2.1 Level AA has become the de facto standard for digital accessibility compliance, and major jurisdictions now mandate it. The DOJ has set specific requirements for state and local governments’ web content and mobile applications, with compliance deadlines based on entity size. Federal agencies must comply with Section 508 standards for ICT accessibility. The practical reality? Vendors have been struggling with this for years. Federal agencies that require Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) and Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) almost never see full compliance claims. And we’re not talking about obscure edge cases—these are fundamental accessibility issues that could be caught and prevented at the language level.

Why Programming Languages Have Been Silent Spectators

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: programming languages are designed to be agnostic. Python doesn’t judge your variable names. JavaScript doesn’t care if your DOM structure is semantic. Go doesn’t enforce your error handling philosophy. This neutrality is often presented as a feature—“we don’t force you into a paradigm”—but it also means languages are happy accomplices to accessibility violations. When you write this in JavaScript:

// The linguistic equivalent of a crime
<div onclick="handleClick()">Click me</div>

Your IDE doesn’t scream. Your linter doesn’t explode. TypeScript doesn’t even blink. Yet you’ve just created an inaccessible interface that keyboard users and screen reader users might struggle with. No warning. No nudge. Nothing. Compare this to how languages treat type safety or null references. After decades of NullPointerException headaches, languages like Rust made null handling impossible to ignore. Kotlin made nullability explicit in the type system. But accessibility? We’ve largely left that to downstream tooling, style guides, and the occasional code review comment that gets ignored because “we’ll fix it later” (narrator: they never did).

The Case FOR Language-Level Enforcement

Let me build the affirmative case, because there’s actually a compelling argument here. First, accessibility as a first-class concern. When something is baked into a language’s core, it signals importance. If TypeScript had an AccessibilityViolation type that propagated through your codebase like an error, suddenly developers would take it seriously. Not because they’re bad people, but because the friction would be real and immediate. Second, the network effect. Once major languages started enforcing accessibility patterns, the ecosystem would follow. Libraries would adapt. Framework conventions would shift. Within a few years, writing inaccessible code would be as weird as writing code without type annotations in modern TypeScript—technically possible, but socially frowned upon. Third, it’s actually solvable. We know what accessible patterns look like. We have WCAG guidelines. We understand semantic HTML. We’ve catalogued ARIA attributes. This isn’t theoretical—it’s concrete, implementable knowledge. Languages could enforce:

  • Semantic HTML structure checking
  • ARIA attribute validation
  • Color contrast requirements for web frameworks
  • Keyboard navigation support verification
  • Alt text requirements for images
  • Form label associations
  • Focus management patterns Fourth, compliance becomes democratic. Right now, accessibility requires specialized knowledge. You need to know WCAG, understand how screen readers work, understand keyboard navigation. Most developers don’t. But if your language says “hey, this component needs semantic markup,” suddenly you’re not opting into accessibility—you’re opting out of it deliberately. The default shifts. Consider this: if we had language-level accessibility checks, this inaccessible button:
// Without enforcement - ships to production
const Button = ({ onClick, children }) => (
  <div 
    onClick={onClick}
    style={{ 
      padding: '10px', 
      backgroundColor: 'blue',
      cursor: 'pointer'
    }}
  >
    {children}
  </div>
);

Could instead produce something like:

// Hypothetically, with accessibility linting built into the language:
const Button = ({ onClick, children, ariaLabel }) => (
  <button 
    onClick={onClick}
    aria-label={ariaLabel}
    type="button"
    style={{ 
      padding: '10px', 
      backgroundColor: 'blue',
    }}
  >
    {children}
  </button>
);
// Error at compile time if ariaLabel is missing when needed
// Error at compile time if onClick doesn't have keyboard handlers
// Error if color contrast is insufficient

The Case AGAINST Language-Level Enforcement

But let’s be intellectually honest. The opposing view has merit too. First, accessibility isn’t universal. A banking application has different accessibility requirements than a browser-based game. A data visualization tool has different constraints than a CRUD interface. A fixed-width layout for a specialized domain might be perfectly acceptable. Hard enforcement at the language level could create more friction than it solves for specialized use cases. Second, it would fragment the ecosystem. Imagine Python enforcing WCAG standards for web frameworks. JavaScript does the same for Node.js APIs. Rust enforces it differently. Now developers working across languages face inconsistent rules. The language wars would become even more intense: “Well, Golang’s accessibility model is too strict for real-world applications.” Third, performance and feasibility concerns. Adding accessibility validation at the language level means more processing, more memory, more complexity in the compiler or runtime. In resource-constrained environments or embedded systems, this could be genuinely problematic. Fourth, it’s premature to enforce what’s still evolving. WCAG 2.1 is current, but what about WCAG 3.0? What if accessibility standards shift significantly in the next five years? Language enforcement would ossify standards into the language itself, making evolution painful. Fifth, this still doesn’t solve the fundamental problem. Accessibility issues aren’t purely technical—they’re often architectural and design decisions. You can enforce semantic HTML, but you can’t force a developer to test with actual assistive technology. You can require ARIA attributes, but you can’t verify they’re correct. Language enforcement is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

A Middle Path: What Languages Could Actually Do

Rather than hard enforcement, here’s what I think programming languages could realistically do without overstepping: 1. Build accessibility linting into standard tooling

# Hypothetically, running the language's linter
$ python -m lint --accessibility myproject/
accessibility/warnings.txt:
  forms.py:42 - Form input without associated label
  dashboard.py:156 - Image without alt text
  navigation.py:89 - Navigation menu not keyboard accessible
  styles.py:201 - Color contrast ratio 3.2:1 (minimum 4.5:1 required)

2. Provide accessibility patterns in the standard library Every language’s standard library includes best practices for common patterns. Why not accessibility? A semantic_button component that’s correct by default beats writing inaccessible divs. 3. Create accessibility-aware type systems For statically-typed languages, you could have types that represent accessible components:

type AccessibleButton = {
  label: string;
  ariaLabel?: string;
  onClick: (event: KeyboardEvent | MouseEvent) => void;
  disabled?: boolean;
};
// The type system ensures you handle both keyboard and mouse events
// It ensures you provide a label
// It's not enforcement—it's guidance with teeth

4. Integration with testing frameworks Languages could provide built-in testing utilities that check accessibility automatically:

# Pseudocode - built into Python's testing ecosystem
import unittest
from accessibility import a11y_assert
class TestUserInterface(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_button_accessible(self):
        button = render_button(label="Submit")
        a11y_assert.has_semantic_role(button, "button")
        a11y_assert.is_keyboard_navigable(button)
        a11y_assert.has_accessible_label(button)

The Complexity: A Visual Journey

Let me illustrate how accessibility considerations currently flow through a development lifecycle compared to how they could:

graph TD A["Developer Writes Code"] -->|Current Reality| B["Code Passes Linter"] B --> C["Code Passes Type Check"] C --> D["Code Passes Unit Tests"] D --> E["Code Ships to Production"] E -->|Accessibility Issues Found| F["Post-Launch Complaints"] F --> G["Accessibility Hotfix"] A -->|With Language Support| H["Code Passes Accessibility Lint"] H --> B H --> I["Accessibility Tests Run"] I --> C I -->|Violations Caught Early| J["Developer Remediates"] J --> K["Code Ships Accessible"] K --> L["Users Have Better Experience"]

Real-World Implementation: Step by Step

Here’s a concrete example of how this could work in practice. Imagine a JavaScript-adjacent language that cares about accessibility: Step 1: Define an accessible component contract

// The language provides a built-in accessibility protocol
protocol AccessibleComponent {
  requires: {
    semanticRole: "button" | "link" | "input" | ...,
    keyboardAccessible: boolean,
    ariaLabel: string | computedFrom(textContent),
    focusManageable: boolean,
  },
  validates: {
    colorContrast: (foreground, background) => ratio >= 4.5,
    textAlternatives: (mediaElements) => allHaveAltText,
  }
}

Step 2: Implement components that satisfy the protocol

component Button implements AccessibleComponent {
  semanticRole = "button";
  keyboardAccessible = true;
  ariaLabel = this.props.label;
  focusManageable = true;
  constructor(props) {
    this.handleKeyboard = (e) => {
      if (e.key === "Enter" || e.key === " ") {
        props.onClick(e);
      }
    };
  }
  render() {
    return (
      <button 
        onClick={this.props.onClick}
        onKeyDown={this.handleKeyboard}
        aria-label={this.ariaLabel}
      >
        {this.props.children}
      </button>
    );
  }
}

Step 3: Compile-time verification When you use this component, the language verifies it meets the protocol. Try to use it incorrectly:

// Error: Button component requires label prop
// Error: Component violates colorContrast requirement (ratio: 2.1, minimum: 4.5)
<Button onClick={handler} style={{ color: '#CCCCCC', background: '#FFFFFF' }}>
  Click me
</Button>

The fix is immediate and forces you to think about accessibility:

<Button 
  onClick={handler} 
  label="Submit Form"
  style={{ color: '#000000', background: '#FFFFFF' }}
>
  Click me
</Button>

The Regulatory Angle

Here’s something rarely discussed in dev circles: the regulatory landscape around accessibility is tightening. Federal agencies already mandate accessibility compliance. State and local governments have specific WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements with compliance deadlines. This isn’t going away—it’s accelerating. If programming languages enforced accessibility standards, they’d be helping developers comply with regulations they’re increasingly required to follow anyway. You’re not imposing unnecessary constraints; you’re aligning language design with legal requirements.

Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Developer Friction

Yes, enforcement creates friction. No, that’s not always bad. The friction around memory safety in Rust was enormous when it launched. Developers complained loudly. And yet, Rust’s strict approach has made it the go-to language for systems where safety genuinely matters. Accessibility matters too—to the users who depend on it. A bit of friction that prevents accessibility violations for millions of people seems like an acceptable trade-off. The friction would also decline over time. After six months of working with language-level accessibility requirements, they become second nature. It’s like type systems—remember when adding types felt like busywork? Now it’s fundamental.

What Would Actually Happen

If major programming languages started enforcing accessibility standards, here’s my prediction of the timeline: Year 1: Intense complaints. Think Rust’s early error messages, but about accessibility. Framework authors scramble to add accessibility support. Some developers switch to older language versions to avoid the “burden.” Year 2: The ecosystem adapts. New components and patterns emerge. People realize that the enforcement actually reduces total work—you’re not spending time in accessibility testing and post-launch fixes anymore. Year 3: Accessibility becomes genuinely normal. Job postings start asking for “accessibility-aware development” less as a special skill and more as a baseline expectation. Year 5: A generation of developers emerges who think of accessibility as just how you build things, not as an optional feature.

The Counterpoint: When Language Enforcement Fails

To be fair, enforcing standards at the language level only works if those standards are well-established and largely stable. We learned this with Python 2 to 3—enforcing too many changes in how a language works breaks ecosystems. Accessibility guidelines will evolve. WCAG 3.0 is coming. Inclusive design practices will continue to improve. If a language enforces WCAG 2.1 Level AA strictly, how does it adapt when standards evolve? Does it break backward compatibility? Does it create technical debt? These are real problems. They suggest that perhaps language-level enforcement should be conservative—enforcing fundamental principles (semantic HTML, keyboard navigation) rather than specific technical requirements that might change.

So, Should They?

My honest answer: partially, pragmatically, progressively. Partial because not every language needs the same level of enforcement. A systems programming language has different concerns than a web framework. But they could all do something. Pragmatically because enforcement should focus on technical issues that are objectively verifiable and where the language is actually in a position to help. “Use semantic HTML” is verifiable. “Make good inclusive design decisions” is not. Progressively because this needs to happen gradually. Start with linting recommendations. Move to type-system support. Eventually, maybe some hard enforcement. But rush it, and you’ll fragment ecosystems and create resentment.

The Challenge for Language Designers

Language designers are now facing a choice: remain neutral or take a stance. Remaining neutral was comfortable. It also meant accessibility remained optional, which contributed to an inaccessible web we’re still trying to fix. Taking a stance is harder. It creates friction. It makes some people angry. But it also means billions of people with disabilities get better access to digital services. That’s not nothing.

What You Can Do Tomorrow

Regardless of what languages do, you don’t have to wait:

  1. Adopt accessibility standards in your team now. Make WCAG compliance a checklist item, not an afterthought. Include it in code review.
  2. Use accessibility linters. Tools like axe DevTools, WAVE, and ESLint accessibility plugins exist. Use them. Make them part of your CI/CD.
  3. Test with actual assistive technology. Screen readers, voice control, switch access—use them in your testing.
  4. Advocate for language features. If your language community supports proposals, suggest accessibility-focused improvements.
  5. Choose frameworks wisely. Support frameworks and libraries that prioritize accessibility. Vote with your dependencies.

The Final Thought

Programming languages are abstract tools that shape how millions of people build software. They influence culture, enforce priorities, and establish baselines. Right now, they’re neutral on accessibility. That neutrality has consequences—and not good ones. The question isn’t really “should languages enforce accessibility?” It’s “why have we let accessibility remain optional for this long?” I think we should make it less optional. Not through heavy-handed enforcement, but through thoughtful language design that makes accessibility the path of least resistance. Make the right thing easy. Make the wrong thing difficult. The web has enough inaccessible applications. Let’s not build the next decade’s worth of them.