I know, right? And he used to play WoW, which, to my understanding, is a lot of grinding. Yet he can't stand that I slink around and insist on checking every box/desk/locker/crate/mailbox/vending machine...
I admit that, while a newbie FO-enthusiast, I was hooked on Morrowind for years, just because right over that little, nondescript hill, was something that made me go, "how the heck did they get me to go to that place, and then put a quest in the middle of nowhere?" So, I started looking for the little things that Bethesda programmers like to use for visual cues.
I can't pretend like that does me any good in this new "environment" however. hehe. I will say that the cues are enough that even color-blind people like me can "sense" them.