Background Absorb-type activities are informative and inspiring. Such activities stimulate learners to access the updated information they need. They have been known as an effective and necessary part to design e-learning content. This study aimed at comparing the effect of e-content designed by absorb-type activities approach with conventional e-content on the learning and retention of students. Methods This was a quasi-experimental study with pre- and posttest, and control group. The study population included third-grade students at a high school in Tehran. Using convenience sampling technique, 52 students were selected and randomly assigned into 2 experimental and control groups. The experimental group was trained by e-content, designed by the absorb-type activities approach, while the control group was trained by e-content designed by conventional methods. The measurement instrument was expert-made pre-and posttests in physics. The reliability of the pretest and posttest using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.82 and 0.89, respectively. Experts and physics teachers also confirmed the face and content validity. For data analysis, descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (analysis of covariance), and SPSS version 16 software were used. Results The study results revealed that the mean difference of learning (17.15 ± 1.15) and retention scores (14.84 ± 2.41) in the experimental group was significantly different from learning (14.61 ± 1.89) and retention scores (12.92 ± 2.71) in the control group (learning: P = 0.001; retention: P = 0.008). Conclusions According to the results of the study, designing e-learning content with absorb-type activities approach had a positive effect on increasing learning and retention of students compared to conventional e-content and can be used to enrich e-content.