I decided to review website pair D.
The first website is called “Revisiting Rebellion: Nat Turner in the American imagination”(https://americanantiquarian.org/NatTurner/). This website has one header with a simple graphic and a few tabs along the side of the page so you can pick which part of the project to look at. These each lead you to a page with a passage and a photo. While these pages are very informative and it is easy to navigate through the different parts of the site, the pictures are small and don’t add much additional context to the passages. In addition, the page’s color scheme consists of colors that don’t catch your eye; it mostly consists of black, beige, and a dull rusty red. Overall, the design of the website is simple and easy to operate, but it ultimately isn’t as appealing or eye-catching as one may like it to be.
The second website is called “The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory” (https://www.virginiahistory.org/collections-and-resources/virginia-history-explorer/portent-john-browns-raid-american-memory). This website again has the tabs on the left side just like the first page and is set up similarly in how you click on whichever tab corresponds to the part of the site you want to look at. However, this site has more detail than the first: the passages go more in depth into their respective issue, there are more pictures displayed on each page (while still maintaining balance by not having too many pictures), and it has arrows along the bottom that take you to the next or previous section so you don’t have to scroll back up to the top and change pages. In addition, the page is more aesthetically pleasing because of the bold, bright blue color it uses on the borders for the page.
Ultimately, I would prefer the second website to the first one for the reasons I listed above. While the first website may be simpler and more strictly informative, the second website is more pleasing visually in terms of both its design and containing more images while also being informative about its given topic as well.
These are strong points of analysis and evaluations for the two websites. They are both oddly similar in the sense that they combine both photos and images together. It is important, as you suggested, that the images are not simply used for decoration but because they contribute to the overall historical narrative. The second website’s design is certainly sharper, but also in a “plain” kind of way. Personally, I wish there was more depth to the gallery of images at the bottom of each page. A cool feature, but for what purpose?