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I am creating a website for an apartment building. There will be a phone number listed for users to contact the landlord. The landlord, however, only wants to receive phone calls during the day.
Would it bad practice to not display the phone number to the users during those nighttime hours where the landlord doesn't want to be contacted or would it be best to put a label under the phone number with the hours?
In my opinion (which might not be representative of the other tenants), I would get really frustrated looking for the number. Showing basic contact info. is one of the primary purposes of a website like that, and so I would keep poking around the website trying to find it.
Instead, try doing what other companies do- show the different ways of contacting the landlord in order of the landlord's preference. For example, show their email address in large font and make it clickable to encourage users to use that first, and then show the phone number in small font with a message to only use the number in emergencies.
Or another way is
If you are interested in this apartment, Contact Mr. XYZ on 123-123-1234 only between 9 AM to 5 PM during weekdays.
Selectively hiding information is not a good idea, especially online. Consider someone who works until late and can't look on the site for accommodation during their lunch break, but can late at night.
Users will either look for an archived version of the page, find the point of contact on social media, or do something worse you would have never thought of.
I suggest you hide the number behind a button with "This user does not want to be contacted outside of [hours], please do not call them now." on it.
Alternatively, if you hide numbers behind captchas, inform the user that they should not contact the renter immediately somewhere in that interface. Specifying why they should not contact them at this time of night is also very important, as it attaches real consequences to doing so.
