As interactive computer systems become popular, the study of pointing devices is becoming more important. This article discusses research on the efficiency of pointing methods which include the combination of a pointing device and its controlling software. One observation from this research is that the pointing efficiency is worse on a model with a smaller target size. Here, we propose a new pointing method—the Brake Type Method—in order to reduce the error rate. In this method, we try to make pointing easier through sufficient control of the movement of the mouse‐cursor. This method was evaluated in an experiment, which was also done with a digitizer (a popular pointing device for graphics). Conclusions indicate that the Brake Type Method proposed here is quite effective in reducing the error rate without losing other aspects of pointing efficiency.

An important problem in the design of a VLSI chip is that of determining how much area is taken to embed a graph G into a planar grid when the VLSI chip is modeled using a graph called a planar grid and a circuit is expressed by a graph G representing wiring connections between elements. Discussed for various graphs will be the upper and lower bounds on the planar grid area into which a graph is embedded. In this paper we consider the problem of embedding a d‐way shuffle graph into a planar grid, using a model which has been extended so that a graph with degree five or more can be embedded. d‐way shuffle graphs are also of theoretical interest since data exchange can be done in high speed like a shuffle exchange graph and a CCC. By using a relationship between the number of crossings of a graph and its area, we show that for the infinite number of d and k an area proportional to dk+1/k)2 is required to embed a dk‐vertex, d‐way shuffle graph. Using this result, the previous lower bound of the area can be improved. Further, for an embedding of a graph G we present an embedding method of G which uses a graph with a known embedding area. By using this result we show that if d is a power of 2, a dk‐vertex, d‐way shuffle graph can be embedded in an area proportional to (dk+1/2)2.