UX: should I hide basic functionality that users can't reach?

Question

I'm working on dashboards now, e.g. employee form. Some users have permissions to delete employee and some are not. Usually these permissions are changed only if user assigned to new type, e.g. from the simple user to manager, so quite rarely (because you can't just give permission for deleting only an employee, you'll have all pack of permissions to delete in other forms too). What is the best approach here:

1. Disable "delete" button for all the users who don't have permissions and while hovering on it show "Only managers can delete employees, request the permission" with the link to request permission.

2. Don't show the "delete" button at all for all the users who don't have permission.

Why I'm confused is just because View, Edit and Delete is kinda basic functionality, so not sure it's a good idea to disable "delete". In all other specific actions (that only managers can do) I don't show the buttons, the question is only about these "basic" ones.

Answer 1

I would hide the button if the user has no permissions, especially as in your case, changing the permissions is a rare event that only the admin can trigger. Thus, the interface is not cluttered with options that will never be available to the user without interventian from an admin.

I would only use disabled states if the user actually can enable the controls himself at some point. (Thus, without asking a 3rd party for permissions) E.g., after filling out a form, the Submit-Buttons is enabled. You can use tooltips or suple text hints to explain what the user has to do to enable the control.

The question was also answered here: Should unauthorized actions in the UI be hidden, disabled, or result in an error?