When our characters can interact with an object (such as a container, to pick up items, or an npc, to talk with) an icon will appear after a few seconds of inactivity, on which we can then press to activate said object.
We can press anyway on the object and the action will still take place, but seeing them is nice. Also it speeds things up.
In the same way we could press alt (if I remember correctly) in diablo II to see items on the ground, is there a keyboard shortcut to display all objects with which we can interact on the screen?