What are Norman's seven stages of action?

One of the topics that usability researcher Donald Norman discusses in his book, “The Design of Everyday Things”, is a model of how people interact with the real world. This model is called the seven stages of action, or Norman’s action cycle.

The action cycle is illustrated below:

The action cycle can be divided into two parts:

Execution

1. Forming a goal about something that you want to accomplish.
2. Forming an intention to act.
3. Selecting a sequence of actions that will lead you to your goal.
4. Execution of the action.

Evaluation

5. Perception of the state of the world resulting from the action.
6. Interpretation of this perception based on your expectations.
7. Evaluating whether or not the goal was reached.