---
title: "Board's Design and Play Modes – Build & Preview Capsules Interactively"
slug: "design-and-play-mode"
description: "Learn how switching between Design Mode and Play Mode lets you build, test, and interact with Capsule elements, screens and logic to validate user flows before deployment."
tags: ["Capsule", "Design Mode", "Developer", "Planner", "Play Mode"]
updated: 2025-11-03T15:14:05Z
published: 2025-11-03T15:14:05Z
canonical: "help.board.com/design-and-play-mode"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.board.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About Design and Play Modes

The Capsules section of Board offers two operating modes: **Play Mode** and **Design Mode**.

- When [**Play Mode**](/v1/docs/design-and-play-mode#capsules-in-play-mode) is active, you can only view and navigate through existing Capsules.
- When [**Design Mode**](/v1/docs/design-and-play-mode#capsules-in-design-mode) is active, you can create new Capsules or perform specific actions on existing Capsules.

## Switch between Design and Play Modes

You can easily switch between [Play Mode](/v14/docs/capsules-in-play-mode) and [Design Mode](/v14/docs/capsules-in-design-mode) by pressing the F4 key. Additionally, you can switch between these modes by clicking on the Play icon ( ![contents/assets/images/play.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-mvqz0kdr.png) ) located in the Top Menu of the Capsule workspace while in Design Mode and by clicking on the Design icon ( ![contents/assets/images/layout.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-kin6jnl3.png) ) located in the sliding menu while in Play Mode.

![contents/assets/images/sliding menu design mode.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-6r3tufki.png)

> [!WARNING]
> Please note that Design and Play Mode in a Capsule are analogous to, but different from, [Edit and Play Mode in a Presentation](/v14/docs/edit-and-play-mode).

A Board Capsule is a free, unstructured environment for ad-hoc analysis. It is essentially a container of Screens and Procedures where users build, view and export business reports, charts, data tables, and navigation flows that dynamically query the underlying Data Models.

In practice, a Capsule is the closest thing to what other software platforms might call an application or workspace.

This makes Capsules both a packaging unit for Board applications and the day-to-day environment through which Planners can interact with analysis, planning, and forecasting.

The Capsules are designed and configured in *Design Mode* by users with a Developer license, and operated with execution-time selections and filters in *Play Mode* by users with a Planner license.

## Related

- [Capsules in Design Mode](/capsules-in-design-mode.md)
- [Capsules in Play Mode](/capsules-in-play-mode.md)
- [The Licenses section](/the-licenses-section.md)
- [The Users section](/the-users-section.md)