OnePlus builds key features of OxygenOS based on user feedback

OnePlus also holds semi-regular, multi-day workshops where its employees bring up ideas of their own or from users online. After picking the most usable and practical ideas, the company puts the feature to user research. It collects feedback from users, both online and in-person.

For this purpose, the company holds its Open Ears Forums in places like London, San Francisco, and New York City every few months. The online feedback comes from social media or from OnePlus’ own forums. Sometimes, the company also asks the users to come up with ideas, as it did in February this year with the #PMChallenge (Product Manager challenge).

Once, it settles down on one or two features to be implemented in the OxygenOS, the company puts the feature in its closed beta program where only a handful of users (about 400) test the feature. The closed beta testers sign an NDA to get the chance to try out new features in its earliest stage and help company fix bugs too.

OnePlus surveys or talks directly to the closed beta users about the feature. It makes changes accordingly and rolls out the feature to open beta testers. Chen says the company tests new features about three times in this manner to make sure they’re ready for production. It takes about three to six months on average for any feature to become a part of OxygenOS.

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Chen also said that adding new features in OxygenOS sometimes results in modifying core behaviour in the Android framework. Any such changes could cause conflicts with the next Android release if Google changes the behaviour themselves. In that case, OnePlus looks for a compromise that allows it to offer its own features alongside the new Android features.