What are descriptors in Dedoose and why are they important?

In Dedoose, descriptors are sets of information you use to identify and describe the sources of your resources/media (e.g., documents, video, audio, images). Often, they are the characteristics of the participants in your research (e.g., individuals, dyads, families), but can also be descriptions of settings in which observations are made (e.g., stores, schools, neighborhoods, cultures). The descriptor fields and values that comprise each descriptor set may include demographic information, dates, scores from survey measures, test results, and any other information you gather that is useful in describing and distinguishing the source of your media—essentially your level(s) of analysis. When imported or manually created and then linked to your media files, descriptors allow for true mixed method exploration of your qualitative data and all you've done with them.