New Outbreaks (but No Zombies) on CDC’s Solve the Outbreak

Oct 31, 2013

The Centers for Disease Control recently added three new outbreaks to their Solve the Outbreak app. CDC released the app earlier this year to teach users how CDC’s disease detectives save lives everyday. There are now nine outbreaks that players can solve to earn points.

Screen shot of the first clue for the game Sugar Plantation Blues showing a photo of a swamp.

Since it’s Halloween, I’ll note that a zombie epidemic is not one of the outbreaks. Most Digital Gov experts might expect some zombies since CDC has a habit of using the living dead as an aid for teaching us about public health awareness. This is the agency that brought us the Zombie Nation campaign, pulled zombie survival lessons from The Walking Dead and even published the graphic novel “Zombie Outbreak.”

The app itself is no zombie. Solve the Outbreak recently earned 4.5 out of 5 points from a NextGov industry panel, which is the highest score of any app in NextGov’s Grading Government Apps series. The only con from the experts is the app’s lack of an Android version.

Developers of CDC’s Solve the Outbreak were featured speakers on our You’ll Have Them at Swipe: Make an Awesome Mobile User Experience webinar and the team provided input on our recent Mobile User Experience Guidelines and Recommendations.You can find other apps like CDC’s Solve the Outbreak on the USA.gov Apps Gallery. Happy Halloween!

GSA

Oct 31, 2013