Material (as opposed to digital) pictograms can be extremely useful for helping a researcher to better understand their own project, and to explain it to someone else.
In 2016 I ran the second in a series of workshop entitled Visualising Social Science Research for the University of Kent Graduate School (see here for notes on the 2015 workshop). In one activity each participant has grabbed a handful of cubes that have pictograms on each surface (here drawn from the games Story Cubes and Nada). They rolled them, studied them, adjust their location. When they were ready, they told a story about their research and/or their research process using the pictograms. I have since used the method to introduce legal concepts to 14 year old students at a London secondary school who were considering studying law.
Amanda Perry-Kessaris 