Assistive technologies such as screen readers, braille displays, and speech recognition software provide essential ways for people with disabilities to access web content. To understand how these technologies interact with web pages, you need to focus on two critical concepts: reading order and ARIA landmarks.

Reading order refers to the sequence in which assistive technologies present content to users. For example, a screen reader will read out the elements of a web page in the order they appear in the HTML structure. If the markup is not logically ordered, users may experience confusion or miss important information. Proper semantic HTML, like using headings (<h1>, <h2>, etc.), lists, and paragraphs, ensures that the content is presented in a meaningful and predictable way.

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) landmarks are special attributes added to HTML elements that define regions of a page. Examples include role="navigation", role="main", and role="banner". These landmarks help assistive technologies quickly identify and navigate to key sections of a web page. By using ARIA landmarks appropriately, you allow users to skip directly to the main content, navigation, or other important areas, improving the overall user experience for those relying on assistive technologies.