This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.
Here’s what my raid frames (Grid) tells me at a glance (image is about 2x nomal size. click to see the full screenshot):

That which grid does by default:
– The boxes are colored by class. So at a glance I know there are 3 hunters.. and I wonder why there’s only two hunter pets up. (Kupl is Lilac the warlock’s phase shifted imp)(all the other warlocks are succy-sac warlocks.. so no pet for them) (If the 3rd hunter pet was dead it should show as dead at the bottom.)
– The first row is group 1, the second row is group 2, etc. It’s easy to say Lilac is in group 3 (Lila in Column1, row 3). Omar is in group 4. You -can- group the hunter pets with the groups in grid.. but I don’t like the way that display looks.
Continue reading At a glance
Almost Chicanery