Scroll bar is one of the most frequently used components of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is generally considered to
provide overview + detail functionality. The scale ratio of a scroll bar refers to the rate of the document dimension to the
proportion being displayed. It is usually determined by the length of the document and the height of the display window if
considering the case of a vertical scrollbar. The user has no direct control to the scale ratio through the scroll bar, which
is inconvenient when dealing with long documents in overview and navigation tasks. This inconvenience is more prominent for
small display devices. This paper presents a novel GUI component, ActiveScrollbar, that enhances the standard scroll bar by
providing direct scale ratio control without consuming more screen space. This component was expected to be more useful in
hand held devices.
Keywords Information Navigation - Information Overview - GUI Component - ScrollBar - Overview + Detail