I prefer to see To first so I can see which of my addresses it was sent to and whether it was sent specifically to me or whether I am just one of many recipients.
Just noticed that my email program actually displays in the order Subject: From: Reply-To: Date: To: Tags:
As I have the program configured to tag the emails in different colours depending on which of my addresses it was sent to I can see which address an email was sent to before I open it by looking at the colour of the entry. So by the time I open the email I have already checked the To: From: Subject: and Date: so the order they appear in within the email doesn’t matter.
If I’m getting it I hope that the “To” is me and I really don’t care if I see it or not. The only time it might be mildly interesting is if there are any Cc’s
Sometimes I’m more interested in the From, sometimes the Subject, and at times the Date.
As long as those are shown in the menu somewhere I’m happy, and I guess I could adapt to any rearrangement.
From a UX view, I think having “search for” and “sort by” are good features.
Now we’re getting into the things I’m interested in… How YOU think!
I would have you to say “I want to see ‘From:’ first, because I know the email is to me!!!”
Oh how the world has changed.
Not sure if I remember this correctly, since I haven’t used an Email Client in nearly a decade, but I’m pretty sure the defacto order used to always be this…
From:
To:
Date:
Subject:
(That is also the order you would expect to see on a Memo or Fax…)
Hey! Don’t get greedy here!! (I’m already behind schedule enough!)
Actually, I do have the ability to sort by Name, Subject and Date in all views, but “Searching” is sadly a feature that does not exist anywhere on my website. (Yeah, I know, let the stoning begin!!)