Digital Heuristics for Industrial Design: Operationalizing Tacit Sustainability Knowledge for Early-Stage Decision Making

Sustainability remains a largely under-investigated, particularly in early-stage industrial design, where significant?decisions are often made with little readily available environmental information. This?study puts forward and empirically tests a digital heuristic framework designed to translate tacit sustainability intuitions into cognitive specific decision supports. Situated within the SECI model and design cognition theory, this study investigates the role?of a heuristic framework in facilitating practitioners to retrieve and operationalize experiential sustainability knowledge during ideation. A mixed methodology was used, which included a thorough review and synthesis of the literature, a national survey that targeted 250 Saudi industrial designers across the country, expert?validation and PLS-SEM. Results suggest that the sustainability orientation of early design outputs is boosted by making tacit knowledge?explicit. Heuristic structuring was found to be a significant mediating variable (? = 0.136, p < 0.001), through which?substantial compiling of complex trade-offs became possible. This phenomenon was?even more obvious in the case of designers who were not equipped with proper digital tools for early-stage guidance. Qualitative findings also illuminated the cognitive function of heuristics in resolving trade-offs or tensions such as recyclability vs.?durability that were typically encountered when considering materials and user behaviors. The result is a validated digital archive converting tacit assumptions of environmental design, especially material action?and human engagement, into accessible heuristic tools at point?of?use. Theoretically, this study bridges the?gap between knowledge management and design cognition; practically, it provides a scalable, low-barrier solution for embedding sustainability reasoning in product innovation. Also, in line with Saudi Vision 2030, the guiding principles enable a shift from?conservative reporting to anticipatory sustainability incorporation. Keywords: Circular Economy Integration, Design Cognition, Digital Heuristics, Early-Stage Design Decision Making, Industrial Design, Sustainable Product Development, Tacit Sustainability Knowledge