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Because behavior can be guided by the combination of internal and external knowledge and constraints, people can minimize the amount of material they must learn, as well as the completeness, precision, accuracy, or depth of the learning. They also can deliberately organize the environment to support behavior. This is how nonreaders can hide their inability, even in situations where their job requires reading skills. People with hearing deficits (or with normal hearing but in noisy environments) learn to use other cues. Many of us manage quite well when in novel, confusing situations where we do not know what is expected of us. How do we do this? We arrange things so that we do not need to have complete knowledge or we rely upon the knowledge of the people around us, copying their behavior or getting them to do the required actions.

Excerpted from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman