Using a product and handling it

Answered on 5 October 2026. You accepted including deliberate handling and adjustment in Hands-on Interaction. Physical operation remains included; a posed hand merely holding the product does not qualify. The broader product-role distinction stays separate.

Your exact answer was: “Include handling and adjustment (Recommended)”. The recorded decision preserves the meaning and its limits. No new answer is needed. The recommendation and alternative below remain the record you reviewed; existing data and implementation still need verification.

One choice

Recommendation: keep Hands-on Interaction as a searchable description of deliberate physical interaction with a product using the hands: operating its controls, adjusting it or actively handling it. Keep whether the product is actually being used for a task as a separate fact. Use can happen without touch, and handling does not always establish use.

A hand merely holding a product still for a posed photograph establishes how it is presented. It does not, by itself, establish either active handling or operation. A described interaction can also fit another useful description: touching a phone interface may be both Hands-on Interaction and UI Interaction. These are overlapping descriptions, not exclusive folders.

The older drafts used Active Use, Hands-on Use and Hands-on Interaction. Their similar wording does not prove they describe the same thing. Active use already belongs to the approved question about the product's role. This proposal does not add another mandatory Active Use label. Existing Hands-on Use records would need individual checks against the chosen meaning; no blanket alias or merge is proposed.

A concrete comparison

Apple's guides document three different actions:

Documented action	What the distinction preserves
Press an AirPod stem to control playback.	Direct physical operation can support both a hands-on description and product use.
Activate Siri by speaking while wearing connected AirPods.	Product use can happen without hands-on interaction.
Remove and attach an AirPods Pro ear tip.	Deliberate handling and adjustment can be useful to find even though the instructions do not establish music playback.

These are publisher-documented examples, checked in Apple's controls guide, Siri guide and ear-tip instructions. They explain the proposed boundary. They are not newly verified classifications of videos in our library. A library assignment still needs evidence in the piece and its relevant interval; a product's documented capability alone is insufficient.

Counterexample: a close-up of an untouched earbud on a table does not become Hands-on Interaction because the product has touch controls. A generated image showing the result of a task does not establish that anyone is operating the product in that image. Describing a result and finding it through a broader browse path are separate questions.

The alternative

Use Hands-on Interaction only for physical operation with the hands, such as pressing a control, and keep handling or adjustment outside that filter. Handling could still be described and searched separately.

That gives the filter a narrower meaning. I recommend including deliberate handling and adjustment because people researching how products are presented may want those references too. The description should say what actually happens, so a researcher can distinguish an adjustment from operation. Exact subordinate filters are not approved by this choice.

What the answer changes

The chosen definition will guide descriptions, prompts and future filter behavior. Search and saved trackers should apply the same meaning. A moment keeps its parent video, supported product and feature links, and any other appropriate descriptions.

This does not change the complete meaning of the Product in Use browsing shelf, approve every old promotion, merge the separate Product Interaction proposal, or convert stored records. Some earlier sampled video descriptions did not match their media. Those records cannot prove that two words are synonyms. The later technical audit must verify media identity, intervals, writers, readers and human corrections before changing assignments.

The evidence note records the bounded checks and limits. The review desk retains the other pending questions.

Prepared 5 October 2026.

Last reviewed 5 October 2026.