New PIC website

The first draft of the new PIC website is almost ready for everyone to look at and comment on. Saying something significant about us without inundating visitors with too much information that may not mean very much to them hasn't been easy. Even so, I think it's true that less is more.

People read websites and online information differently from the way they read newspapers, magazines and books printed on paper. Viewers generally skim online material very quickly in a diagonal direction, from top to bottom, rather than from margin to margin across a web page. Images which are so compelling in print advertising become more so online. And while the size of blocks of text is a serious concern in newspaper and magazine publishing--paragraphs that are more than 4-5 lines long often seem daunting to readers--this is a bigger issue online.

Oh, no! That last paragraph is seven lines long!

The point is that we need to be concise. That's not easy. Like many writers, I am sometimes tempted to think that my writing is important because I put time into it or because I chose words carefully. I imagine that a reader will pay attention to my words and thoughts if they're well-crafted. It's so easy to forget that readers don't trust text.

In Rembrandt's painting, An Old Woman Reading, we know that the woman is reading a Bible because the book she holds is the principal source of light. It's a classically Calvinist concept: the light of the Word shines on us and illuminates the world around us. Only the Bible--the word of God--can be trusted to show us what's real and what matters.

We need to be cautious about the light that shines on us from our computer monitors. I believe that God created cyberspace, but as in the material world, much of what we find there, or put there, will always be ambiguous.

I hope the website and its content will be useful. I'm eager to learn your thoughts and ideas about ways to improve it.