How do you measure and improve the accessibility of your web content for diverse audiences?

When conducting user testing be sure to recruit participants with varying limitations and ask them to navigate your website and provide feedback on any challenges they encounter. Also be sure to check for contrast. Use a contrast checker tool to test the color contrast of text and other visual elements on your site. this can help identify any low-contrast issues that make it difficult for users with low vision or color blindness to read your content. A contrast checker tool to use is WebAIM Contrast Checker.

A good strategy to future-proofing is to always aim for WCAG level AAA with AA being the compromise if the higher standard is unachievable. The P.O.U.R. principles offer an easy and logical way of explaining accessibility to content owners who may be unfamiliar with the concept.

@AidanOconnor makes some good points here. Staying up to date on standards as technology evolves is important. And just as you can make changes to your physical plant that are beneficial to everyone (installing ramps in addition to or instead of steps for example), providing clear and concise language helps users with cognitive disabilities but it also benefits all users. At some point you may find it necessary to involve accessibility experts. They can help identify accessibility issues, provide guidance on how to address them, and ensure your web content meets the relevant standards and guidelines. Be careful here. This is still an emerging field so it's relatively easy for people to present themselves as experts.

User research should never be under-estimated. Hearing from the people who actually use your website/app/service is one of the most useful resources available to you. Be open to the process and don't baulk at negative feedback (or take it personally!). The voice of users can lead you to unexpected, but highly effective, design solutions.

Content design is an iterative process that involves continually testing, refining, and improving your web content. Create a schedule to review existing content and make improvements an ongoing process.

If your website contains a large amount of PDF documents (such as reports or research documents), these should also be made as accessible as possible by ensuring proper heading structures, tagging, alt-text etc. are all in place. For short PDF documents, consider recreating these as HRML instead.

Don't sleep on manual QAs, either! Ask members of your team to review your website using a variety of web browsers and devices, particularly focusing on desktop and mobile. Create a spreadsheet to log any issues, and prioritize those issues from lowest to highest priority. Then, methodically correct problems following your issues log. Real users will provide just as quality feedback as AI or an algorithm, if not higher quality.

Websites often include PDFs as lead generators but they're not accessible and can be hard to read online. Consider putting at least part of a PDF as ungated content on one or more web pages. That way, a user can access the information which can help them make a better decision about the potential value of the rest of the material, which can incent them to opt-in for the rest.