The “new” read/unread icons have really hurt usability for me.
There used to be an open or closed envelope. Those 1) have very different silhouettes, which makes them quick and easy to distinguish at a glance and 2) their meaning is instantly recognizable.
The new icons are a closed envelope with either a checkmark or a dot. Their silhouettes are nearly identical, and their meaning isn’t obvious to me. I guess the dot is meant to look like the notification mark on app icons?
I could maybe understand changing to more digital/mobile native icons, but it’s still using an envelope, so the change in symbology is half-assed. It also ignores the fact that those mobile notification dots use color to aid recognition, because they’re otherwise be really hard to notice.
It is a significant inconvenience, and I see absolutely no upside. I realize these kinds of pleas are rarely worth the effort, but can we get the old icons back, pretty please? Or at the very least, make their silhouettes very different. If you insist on keeping the dot/check, then make that the most significant part of the icon and scale down the envelope.