Header bar buttons are confusing, hard to find the action you need
The header bar contains a lot of buttons, most of which are icon-only which makes it unclear what they do.
Concrete problems I've had / I'm having:
- It took me a while to find the "Compose Message" button the first time, it still takes me a second to remember where it is. Suggestion: add label ("New"? "Compose"?) like Archive.
- I can't tell from this header bar where "Mark as Read / Unread" is. The "Mark conversation" button icon does not really look that much like a marker (looks more like a paintbrush to me where the top is a handle and the bottom is the bristles), and even if it did, I don't have a strong association of "marker" <=> "Mark as Read / Unread".
- I'm still not sure how to "Unmark" message as spam.
- I can't tell at a glance which of the three buttons is "Reply". I have to remember if it's "left arrow" or "right arrow", neither of which I associate with "Reply". The "Reply All" icon is also not very telling.
I'm not experienced in design, but I have a few guesses at what could make this better:
- Remove forward, mark, label, move to folder buttons from the header bar onto the message itself or into message's right click menu.
- Leave regular Reply with a label, add label to Compose, add label to "Mark".
- Add "Mark as not Spam" entry to message right click menu for messages in the Junk folder (and maybe "Mark as Spam" for messages not in the Junk folder).
Example: