I'm slogging through roughly half a thousand emails all marked 'unread' and meanwhile new 'current' email is still coming in, and it's irritating that these both get the same level of 'unread' prominence. What I mean is that the unread message from two weeks ago is given just as much visual distinction as the unread message that just came in.

What I think would be really cool is there was an 'age unread messages' button. Say that your read messages are black plain and your unread messages are black bold. I'd love it if I could make my first pass through the unread messages, (but still wanting to fine-tooth-comb-in later to make sure I didn't miss a friend who stupidly titled their email 'Make Money Now #447') then click this magic button that would make all the current unread messages more grey, or given another visual treatment on a linear scale to signify that 'yes they're unread' but 'no, they're not since your last scan through the list'. Ideally, I'd want it to be 'less bold' but current DPIs on monitors don't really allow for that kind of specificity.

To put it another way, 'unread' implies that cognitive effort has not been spent on this message. Now that simply opening a spam message can inform the sender that you're a real person really reading email and is therefore more spamworthy (via embedded tagged image links), I try to not actually open spam messages at all. This means that I spend a considerable amount of cognitive effort on a message, even if it's 'unread'. I want to be able to mark messages as 'screened' so that I can easily pick out those messages that have not only not been read, but haven't even been screened, or looked at.

So, anyone out there working on Outlook Express for the Mac? Oh, wait. I know someone who is. I think it's time to invite them to read the weblog!