# Tableau Mobile Device Designer Testing through your browser

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2017-08-30
- **Format:** Video · 8 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Productivity
- **Tools:** Tableau (dashboards, formatting)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-mobile-device-designer-testing-through-your-browser
- **Watch:** https://youtu.be/Pa4iPkLAZ3k

I show you how to test Tableau mobile device designs directly in your browser using Google Chrome's developer tools. I cover toggling the device toolbar, adjusting breakpoints and devices, throttling connections to simulate slow networks, and exporting screenshots with a device frame.

## Key takeaways

- Right-click and select Inspect Element, then toggle the device toolbar (Command+Shift+M on Mac) and refresh the page to render Tableau's mobile dashboard layout
- You can hide the device frame and toggle media query indicators to see the breakpoints where designs shift between phone, tablet and desktop
- Edit the device list to enable a wider range of test devices, and use connection throttling (slow 3G, fast 3G or custom) to simulate field testing from your desk
- The network tab reveals which queries take longest to load, helping you pinpoint performance bottlenecks like heavy JavaScript elements
- Chrome can render a device frame around the dashboard and export both framed and full-page screenshots, but remember iPhones run Safari so browser behaviour won't be identical

## Chapters

- 0:00 Enabling the device toolbar in Chrome
- 1:42 Interacting with the mobile render
- 2:37 Device frames, media queries and breakpoints
- 3:37 Changing devices and throttling connections
- 4:59 Inspecting load times in the network tab
- 5:55 Rendering and exporting device screenshots
- 7:24 Caveats: Chrome versus Safari

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-mobile-device-designer-testing-through-your-browser

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena