So instead, the Torontoist just teases the living shit out of you with these promises of larger images to come:
So you think "oh, okay, I'll click it to see a bigger version" and then you get the exact same size in a popup, which again, tells you, that there is in fact a larger image to be seen... if you can manage to mouse over the image without triggering the appearance of the left and right arrows and the impression that a click will send you to a different image:
So this is the third zoom-in click and it just keeps the punishment coming with the same image size. So this is a map of Canada's largest city, which geographically gobbled up all the surrounding townships, and the path to go all the way from ass to ear of the thing is the size of a rave flyer.
So there's a few things that lead to this kind of problem. The original source image can be smaller than the web operator knows, or the wrong settings could be in place for the photo viewer, or most notably, there's no differentiation in content type from one photo or another. Differences in resolution needs and aspect are totally sanitized by the whole thing. Are three different resolutions really necessary up in here? They could have just put a maps link under the image.
Let's pretend you're about to print off 10,000 copies of a newspaper, and it has to start printing in five minutes. You've got that long to have a smoke or something before hitting the button, and the master copy is sitting there in front of you. If you have any sense at all, you spend that last five minutes getting totally fresh eyes to scan it over, so your news article doesn't end up turning into a news article about embarrassing news articles.
On a website, the thinking is, well, we can always change it. And that's what I truly love about the 'net. Every webpage can be updated at any time. It's so freeing. But at the same time, when you know that like 10,000 hits are going to grab that page before you have a chance to upload a fixed typo or accidental image mix-up? The situation demands action. The thing must be proofread, and sites need to be proof-used. And systems need to be tuned to their purpose, and this is one of the problems with a template mentality: you better be able to customize the living daylights out of a template on the subatomic level if you're going to lay one on a client. Okay maybe the elemental level. But if you have no alchemy with the CMS, disclaim your service accordingly or face industrial disdain, which sucks. I know - I have been on both ends of this. I have done terrible things to my clients' domains through ignorance of my choice tools, and that made me much more conservative. I really try to emphasize... anything can be done affordably, but ease up on the features and take it one small bite at a time.
I'm not even trying to single out the Torontoist as a usability loser, because most of these news sites just don't show any sign of applying the lessons they've learned from printing papers for hundreds of years. How can you duplicate a production process so blindly but lose the principles behind it so thoroughly? It's like web design is the marriage of IT principles with a print design process. Yuck.
