While running and debugging development applications in VS Code, you can open the "Vigdis Spector" tool to observe the number of widgets used in the application and how individual widgets are used. This inspection tool can be accessed through VS Code's command panel by searching for "wicht." You can run the command "open zoo tools is inspector page" from there to open the widget inspector. Alternatively, you can use the command panel to search for "start t dep" and then execute "zt t open up tools" followed by "open up tools in web broster" to open the developer tools in a web browser. The Flutter Inspector accessed this way allows you to inspect the widgets used in the application, check widget layouts in "layout explore," and view configuration details of selected widgets, such as text content and text direction, in "details trade."