In a recent project I did this using colour. This was an logging/audit interface, where each line may include one or more UUIDs. For each UUID I 1) truncated i

In a recent project I did this using colour. This was an logging/audit interface, where each line may include one or more UUIDs. For each UUID I 1) truncated it, 2) gave it a background colour based on the UUID itself, and 3) prefixed it with an icon for the object type. The overall effect was actually pretty good. One could easily scan the list for the same UUIDs based on the colour, and the icon added clarity as to what was being referred to