The HBase reference documentation dosen't really say much about schema design and most of us coming from a relational back ground will need to change our way of thinking in order to swtich to a more column based kind of designs.
You need to look more at the types of queries that you will be needing to access your data rather that just nomarlise every thing to 3rd normal form as in traditional relational databases. And that itself might not be easy. I will be writing more as i try to design my current application's data base into a Hbase kind of design, and what are the challenges i find.
Below are some of the useful resources that helped me in understanding column based kind of designs.
http://ianvarley.com/coding/HBaseSchema_HBaseCon2012.pdf
http://traackit.blogspot.sg/2010/05/20090713-hbase-schema-design-case.html
Schema Design Guidelines and Case Studies
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Oe0Kf9oQhO0J:india.paxcel.net:6060/LargeDataMatters/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Schema-Design-Guidelines.doc+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShyf8WIXTdsWbYRTWWLHUgvYbWDa2AilTnm6xUWnaHDvpX6gARtzDNBx6GlsbE1hjdZoR3hYBYjk03zlwq8LLkA9VRYlLwihD4S75pxlMtitX640uwrQsOa0cC5K5JPGfhAfQIK&sig=AHIEtbR8TyqVgcc3WFGtpKWX7eZOZBpnFQ&pli=1
Varley Masters report (as referenced by HBase documentation)
http://ianvarley.com/UT/MR/Varley_MastersReport_Full_2009-08-07.pdf
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