Barlow played the part of the detectives during filming, asking scripted questions to Seifert's character,[35] but is never featured in Her Story.[7] When watching police interviews for research, Barlow found himself empathising with the interviewee, which inspired him to exclude the detective from the game. He stated that the interviews typically feature "double betrayal", in which the detectives are "pretending to be the best friend".[36] Barlow felt that removing the detective from the game empowers Seifert's character, allowing the player to empathise.[36] When conducting research for Her Story, Barlow looked at the case regarding the murder of Travis Alexander, which made him consider the manner that female murder suspects are treated in interrogations, stating that they "tend to be fetishised, more readily turned into archetypes".[21] This was further proved to Barlow when studying the interviews of Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox; he found that media commentary often ignored the evidence of the investigation, instead focusing on the expressions of the suspects during the interviews.[37] Barlow conducted further research by studying texts about psychology, and the use of language.[18]